



* \;^S-\^ X"^^/* \/?^'/ 



S9 



SCIENTIFIC CONFIRMATIONS 

OF OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



The Logic of Christian Evidences — Andover: Warren 
F. Draper, 1880, nmo, pp. xii, 312. $1.50. 

Studies in Science and Religion — Warren F. Draper, 
1882, i2mo, pp. xvi, 390. $1.50. 

The Ice Age in North America and Its Bearings upon 
the Antiquity of Man — New York: D. Appleton & 
Co., 4th ed., 1889, 8vo, pp. xl, 648. $5.00. 

Charles Grandison Finney — (American Religious 
Leaders Series) — Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
1891, i2mo, pp. 329. $1.25. 

Man and the Glacial Period — (International Scientific 
Series) — D. Appleton & Co., 1897, i2mo, pp. xxxii, 
358. $1.75. 

Greenland Ice Fields and Life in the North At- 
lantic — D. Appleton & Co., 1896, i2mo, pp. xv, 407. 
$2.do. 

Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences — D. Apple- 
ton & Co., 1898, i2mo, pp. xi, 262. $1.50. 

Asiatic Russia — New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 
1902, two vols., 8vo, pp. 600. $7.50. 











' 




311 


■ -'. . 




? V 


i ^ 


• 
1 




>P'V :' ' 












^- ' '.:-■- 


\ 






;: 


j!f, 


'■■:■:■' '*;'■■:',/ 


kg 










i?3B 



Scientific Confirmations 

of Old Testament History 



BY 

G. FREDERICK WRIGHT 
D.D., LL.D., F.G.S.A. 



" An apparent improbability is, when verified, the surest 
witness to the truth " 



ILLUSTRATED 



OBERLIN, OHIO, U. S. A. 

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA COMPANY 

1906 






LIBRARY of C0N8RESS 


TWo Copies Received 


DE( 29 !906 


Copyright Entry 


o<3fcc fG, KfoC 


CLASS & XXc, No, 


/£ 27^9 


COPY B. 



COPYRIGHTED 1906 BY 
SIBLIOTHECA SACRA COMPANY 



The News Printing Co.. Oberlin. O. 



To the 

(ErtiHtrrH nf ©hrrltn (Enllrgr 

in recognition of the generous interest which 

has made the prosecution of my 

investigations possible 

I dedicate this volume 



PREFACE. 

The conclusions recorded in the present volume are 
both a cause and a result. They were the cause of the 
establishment of the chair which I now occupy, and 
they are the result of the investigations made possible 
by the generousness of its provisions. Fourteen years 
ago these conclusions were dimly seen " as trees walk- 
ing." At that time, the importance of enabling me to 
follow out to the full extent the investigations upon the 
relations of man to the post-Tertiary (or Glacial) 
epoch which I had been prosecuting for twenty years 
led the trustees of Oberlin College to establish the 
professorship of The Harmony of Science and Revela- 
tion, and to appoint me the first incumbent. The pro- 
visions of the chair allowed me the freedom of the first 
half of each year, in order to pursue at my own discre- 
tion the lines of investigation upon which I had en- 
tered ; while a year and a half was at one time granted 
me to make a complete circuit of the northern hemi- 
sphere to visit regions in the Old World which are 
ordinarily inaccessible. For these and other privileges 
so generously granted me by the trustees and faculty of 
Oberlin College, I here take occasion to express my 
profound appreciation. 



x Preface. 

Since my appointment, the subject has never for one 
moment been out of my mind, and I have availed my- 
self of every opportunity to enlarge the horizon of my 
vision in the direction of the interpretation both of the 
Bible, and of the rapidly accumulating facts relating 
to recent geological events which have had a profound 
influence upon the early history of man. In 1 904 the 
results so far attained were made the theme of the 
Stone Lectures in Princeton. Their publication, how- 
ever, has been delayed until the present time, in order 
that I might avail myself of the information gathered 
during a third extended visit to the localities on the 
eastern continent where the facts could be most profit- 
ably studied. It has also seemed best not to retain the 
lecture form, but to treat the subject in the more elab- 
orate manner which is suitable for the reader. In a 
subsequent volume I shall treat of the broader question 
of The Origin and Antiquity of the Human Race, — a 
subject upon which recent geological investigations aie 
shedding new and increasing light. 

The present work is committed to the public in the 
hope of doing something to reestablish confidence in the 
historical statements of the Old Testament, and, at the 
same time, of so unfolding the marvelous geological 
events of the post-Tertiary period as to incite the 



Preface. xi 

general reader to a closer study of its significant and 
overwhelming facts, which invite investigation on every 
hand. The discussion is believed to be also eminently- 
worthy of the attention of geologists, many of whom 
are so engrossed in their special studies that they have 
little leisure or inclination to consider the action of 
geological forces in their more general application. All 
students both of the Bible and of the early history of 
mankind, as well as of geology, will, I am sure, find 
satisfaction in the light which science is here made to 
shed upon some of the early traditions of mankind. 

The convictions formulated in the present volume 
have deepened as investigations have proceeded from 
year to year. It remains to attempt to get the facts so 
clearly and fully before the public that it shall have the 
same basis for judging the conclusions which the writer 
has attained for himself. As such an attempt, the vol- 
ume is commended to the charitable consideration and 
the criticism of all students who have given attention 
to any of the phases of the broad subject which has 
here received general treatment. 

G. Frederick Wright. 

Oberlin, Ohio, November 3, 1906. 



CONTENTS. 
Chapter I. 

The Witness of the New Testament 3 

Christianity an historical religion — Written history 
indispensable to progress — A stimulus to the intellect 
— A high degree of certainty attainable by historical 
evidence — Historical evidences of Christianity — The 
Old Testament indorsed by the New. 

Chapter II. 

Middle and Later Jewish History 33 

Different ways of writing history — Connecting links 
of the argument — Historical setting of the book of 
Daniel — Destruction of Sennacherib's army — The 
times of Ahab and Jehu — The black obelisk of Shal- 
maneser II. — The Moabite stone — The expedition of 
Shishak — Brevity of the book of Judges — Joshua's 
command to the sun to stand still. 

Chapter III. 

Israel in Egypt 67 

Principles of interpretation — Famines in Egypt — The 
sources of the Nile — Vacillations of the government. 

Chapter IV. 

The Exodus 83 

Definition of miracle — Passage of the Red Sea — 
Physical conditions north of Suez — Former depres- 
sion of the land — The effect of wind on water levels. 



Contents 



Chapter V. 

Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine 118 

The great " fault " of the Jordan Valley — The fall- 
ing of the walls of Jericho — The parting of the 
waters of the Jordan — The destruction of Sodom and 
Gomorrah — The fourteenth chapter of Genesis. 

Chapter VI. 

Traditions of the Deluge 159 

Comparison with other traditions — The log-book of 
Noah — Extent of the Deluge — The date of the Del- 
uge. 

Chapter VII. 

Scientific Credibility of the Deluge 198 

The uniformitarian theory in geology — All geolog- 
ical movements comparatively slight — Recent great 
geological changes — The latest geological epoch one 
of great changes of level. 

Chapter VIII. 

The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa 220 

Magnitude of the forces involved — Recency of the 
Glacial epoch. 

Chapter IX. 

Evidences of a Deluge in Europe 238 

The rubble drift, or " head " — Ossiferous fissures — 
The loess deposits of Europe. 



Contents. xv 

Chapter X. 

Evidence of a Deluge in Asia 283 

The loess of Northern China — Wind and water the 
distributing agencies — Corroborative evidence of a 
depression of Asia — Remains of antediluvian man. 

Chapter XI. 

The Deluge in North America 323 

Glacial lakes of North America — Floods of the Mis- 
souri River — Recent destruction of animal species- 
Summary and conclusion — Objections answered. 

Chapter XII. 

Genesis and Science 368 

Earlier views of the author — Dana's summary of the 
scientific facts — Remarkable parallelism of the Mo- 
saic account. 

Appendix 387 

Index 417 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Page 
Interglacial Forest Uncovered by the Retreat of 

the Muir Glacier, Alaska Frontispiece 

General View of the Crow's Nest from the Pyramids 98 

Near View of the Raised Beach on the Crow's Nest 99 

Conglomerate Knob in Desert North of Suez 104 

View of Jebel Attaka, from the Vicinity of Pi-hahiroth 109 
Submerged Trees above the Cascades of the Columbia 

River 133 

Cut for the Canal South of the Cascades 139 

Sedimentary Banks of the Jordan 142 

Burning Oil Well at Baku 147 
Cross-Section Showing the Depth of the Southern Part 

of Lake Baikal 209 

Raised Beach in Sweden 219 
General View of the Rubble Drift at East Brighton, 

England 242 

Near View of the Raised Beach at East Brighton 244 

Section of the West End of Sangatte Cliff, near Calais 247 
Diagram Showing the Direction of the Currents on a 

Hill Range during Uplift 253 

The Mountain of Santenay 259 

Transverse Section of the Rock of Gibraltar 263 

Mouth of the Cave of San Ciro, near Palermo 266 

Raised Beach on the Island of Guernsey 276 

Diagram Section across the Island of Guernsey 278 

Section from La Motte to Ube 279 

Delta of Loess at Nankau, China 288 

Rows of Houses in the Loess at Shiwantse, China 290 

House in the Loess at Shiwantse 294 

Another House at Shiwantse 296 

Excavated Cliff of Loess at Tashkent 299 

Raised Beach at Trebizond 316 



ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS. 



Bluff of Loess at Kief, Russia 

Cross-Section of the Osage Trough at Tuscumbia, 
with a Canadian Boulder 

Bluff of Loess facing the Missouri River at Lansing, 
Kan. 

Stratified Loess at St. Joseph, Mo. 

Mammoth from Siberia in the Museum at St. Peters- 
burg 



Page 
319 



345 
346 



MAPS. 

Map of the Delta, or Lower Egypt 96 
Map of Lower Egypt during a Depression of Three 

Hundred Feet 102 

Map of Lake Baikal 208 

Map of Glaciated Areas in North America and Europe 222 

Map of Bay of Palermo 269 

Map of Supposed Post-Glacial Submergence in Asia 304 
Map of Glaciation in Eastern and Central United 

States 326 
Map of the Glaciated Area in the Lower Missouri 

Valley 340 



Scientific Confirmations of Old 
Testament History. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE WITNESS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Christianity is preeminently an historical religion. 
Its specific characteristics consist in the revelation of 
God made through the personal life of the incarnate 
Word. Because the Word became flesh and dwelt 
among us, we have been enabled to behold his glory, 
even the glory of the only-begotten Son of God. Our 
knowledge of the saving truths revealed in the life of 
Christ does not come to us through intuition or imme- 
diate revelation, except as these illumine lines of his- 
torical evidence. Christ was crucified once for all, and 
the knowledge of the fact was committed to the keep- 
ing of the historical forces radiating throughout the 
future from that point of time. This precious treasure 
of knowledge was committed to the care of the first 
disciples of Christ, and through them to the Christian 
church, thereby exalting her members to the responsi- 
ble position of co-workers with God in the spread of 
his kingdom on earth. All this is briefly expressed in 
the familiar statement that the church of Christ is a 



4 The Witness of the New Testament. 

missionary organization. The last command ot net 
divine Lord and Master was, " Go ye, therefore, and 
make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into 
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the 
Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I commanded you." 

This dependence of Christianity upon facts which 
can be proved only through historical processes is often 
urged as an objection to the system, it being alleged 
that it is unreasonable to suppose that in so important 
a matter as their religious life, God would make his 
creatures dependent upon such uncertain evidence as 
that by which historical facts are established. But 
closer consideration of the subject will show : ( i ) that 
man's dependence upon historical facts for his highest 
religious development is in close analogy with his de- 
pendence upon the past for civilization in general; (2) 
that that ordering of Divine Providence by which 
successive generations are made largely dependent upon 
their predecessors, and by which the favored portions 
of mankind to whom much has been given are made 
responsible for the transmission of these gifts to the 
less favored, is one of the richest boons which have been 
conferred upon the race; (3) that the certainty of 
conclusions reached through historical evidence may be, 
and in the case of Christianity is, of the very highest 



The Witness of the New Testament. 5 

order, and such as universally commands the assent, and 
directs the activity, of men in their ordinary affairs. 

WRITTEN HISTORY INDISPENSABLE TO PROGRESS. 

I. With reference to the first point it is sufficient 
to remark, that, as an intellectual being, man is chiefly 
characterized by his ability to attain, through inductive 
reasoning, a knowledge of the past which lies beyond 
the reach of memory, and to make it the basis of ad- 
vancing to that wider knowledge of the future which 
secures the progress of the race. Indeed, it is just this 
which makes the difference between civilization and 
savagery. The savage is limited in knowledge to his 
immediate intuitions and perceptions, eked out by still 
scantier information obtained through tradition and his 
imperfect means of obtaining testimony from his con- 
temporaries. It is almost exclusively through books 
that the successive generations of the civilized world 
obtain the results of the past experience of mankind, 
and thus are able to lift themselves to a height from 
which the horizon of their intellectual vision can be 
greatly expanded. It is chiefly by reason of written 
documents that each generation of civilized men is en- 
abled to stand upon the shoulders of the generation 
which has preceded. Destroy literature, rob the pres- 
ent of that definite knowledge of the past which it ob- 
tains through written documents, and progress would 



6 The Witness of the New Testament. 

at once be checked, and mankind would revert to 
barbarism. 

If one is inclined to challenge this proposition, his 
doubts will be dissipated by a little well-directed re- 
flection. In astronomy the whole system rests upon 
disconnected measurements and observations made and 
reported by a great number of observers whose record 
is the basis for all mathematical calculations concerning 
the size and movement of the heavenly bodies. Our 
estimation of the size of the earth, for example, is de- 
pendent upon a few careful measurements which have 
been made upon an arc of its circumference. It is not 
within the power of the individual to repeat these 
measurements. He is compelled to trust the record of 
work done by others. In chemistry, likewise, it is out 
of the question for each individual investigator to go 
through all the processes by which the nature of the 
various elements has been determined. It would be a 
sorry condition of things, indeed, if all the violent ex- 
plosives and deadly poisons had to be discovered anew 
by every experimenter. Geology, also, is a system of 
facts discovered by a wide range of investigators. It 
is entirely beyond the capacity of any one man to sur- 
vey the whole field. The work of the United States 
Geological Survey is carried on by a whole army of 
investigators who bring in their results to await corre- 



The Witness of the New Testament. 7 

lation at the central bureau by experts dependent for 
their facts upon the written reports. 

It is, however, in the realm of those higher and more 
delicately balanced forces pertaining to the political 
and social life of man that he is most strikingly depend- 
ent upon the wisdom handed down from preceding 
generations. Imperfect as are political and sociological 
theories, how utterly useless would they be if we were 
shut off from the access to the world's experience which 
is furnished us through written documents pertaining 
both to the past and to the present! The statesmen who 
mark out the lines of national polity for the future, 
and the military commanders who control the armies 
that serve as the bulwark of national defense, would 
be poorly prepared indeed for their work if they had 
but the imperfect knowledge of the experience of others 
which is furnished by oral testimony. If it be true, as 
it certainly is, that the patriot and statesman has no 
lamp but the past to guide him into the future, he must 
set a very high value upon the definite historical records 
in which the light of the past is concentrated. Indeed, 
what would statesmen and judges do without prece- 
dent by which to guide their action amid the compli- 
cated casuistries arising anew with every step into the 
future? It should not therefore seem strange that in 
religion we are bound to the past by a similar law of 



8 The Witness of the New Testament. 

dependence, nor that the written word should be 
highly exalted among the agencies by which the wis- 
dom of the past is brought within our reach and made 
serviceable to us. In fact, it is in accordance with all 
analogy that the highest religion of the world should be 
perpetuated through historical forces, and embodied in 
a book. 

A STIMULUS TO THE INTELLECT. 

2. From an intellectual point of view, also, it is 
not a reproach, but a glory, to Christianity, that it is 
an historical religion ; since it brings into exercise, 
through historical research, the highest powers of our 
rational nature, and cultivates that capacity for in- 
ductive reasoning which is the pride of the present age 
of advancement. Indeed, history affords the most im- 
portant of all fields for inductive reasoning, and in its 
study brings into requisition all branches of knowledge 
and every faculty of the intellect. Hence it is the best 
basis possible for the symmetrical development of the 
human mind. For it is worthy of notice in this con- 
nection that there is not that difference between 
direct and circumstantial evidence which is often 
insisted upon. All evidence is circumstantial. The 
direct testimony of a witness is but a circumstance. 
The truth or falsity of his testimony has to be de- 
termined by a wide range of considerations. The 



The Witness of the New Testament. g 

existence of a written document is likewise but 
a circumstance. The validity of its testimony has 
to be established by the circumstances under which 
it has come to our notice, by inspection of its 
contents, and by comparison of its statements with the 
known conditions surrounding its alleged facts. Thus 
every department of science may be brought in to con- 
tribute evidence, of more or less cogency, bearing upon 
the truth of a literary document. The question of its 
forgery may depend upon chemical analysis of its ink, 
or upon the water-lines in its paper, or upon the in- 
capacity of a forger to produce the document within a 
given time, or upon the inability of later writers per- 
fectly to simulate the character of the times to which 
the document purports to pertain. 

It will prepare us for a readier acceptance of the 
divine plan of revelation if we consider more fully the 
incidental advantages arising from having this treasure 
committed to the earthen vessels of history, and made 
dependent upon our care for its preservation. The 
highest favor which God has conferred upon man is 
that of exalting him to the position of a co-worker in 
the plan of salvation. It is at once a recognition of his 
godlike qualities, a means of his highest development, 
and the gratification of his noblest aspirations. At first 
thought it would seem that Almighty Power could 



io The Witness of the New Testament. 

best accomplish its objects directly, without ♦'he inter- 
vention of so imperfect' a secondary cause as is the 
human will. Indeed, from Celsus to Huxley it has 
been a standing objection to the Christian system that 
miracles are so few. " If," it is said, " the God of the 
Christians is able to perform miracles, and is at the 
same time compassionate, it is absurd that his miracu- 
lous acts should be so limited as they are represented to 
have been in the biblical record." The rational justi- 
fication of this plan by which so much is left to human 
initiative is, that thereby man is exalted to a position 
of high privilege, in which a field of boundless devel- 
opment is open before him. By virtue of his moral 
freedom, man becomes the architect of his own fortune, 
and at the same time in a most important sense his 
brother's keeper. The obedience which he renders to 
law is not forced and mechanical, but partakes of the 
divine element of all-comprehensive love. 

The dependence of children upon their parents is 
but a type of the dependence, in a broader sense, of the 
successive generations of mankind upon their ancestors, 
and of the less-favored races of the world upon the 
more-favored. Results of the highest and most benefi- 
cent order follow upon the divinely ordered arrange- 
ment that man is everywhere and always his brother's 
keeper. In no other way are we so stimulated to honor 



The Witness of the New Testament. 1 1 

our ancestors as through the study of the heroic efforts 
which they have made to perpetuate for the use of 
their successors the truths of experience and revelation 
which have been committed to their keeping. Among 
the strongest of all earthly ties are those which bind a 
pupil to his teacher. It is impossible to overestimate the 
value of the bonds of affection which are being formed 
at the present time between heathen and Christian na- 
tions through the great missionary movements which 
are in operation. Through these efforts the unfathom- 
able depths of compassion on the one side and grati- 
tude on the other are opening up, and the whole life of 
the world is being enriched beyond measure for time 
and eternity. Only when Christian nations shall give 
to others as freely as they have received will the broth- 
erhood of humanity reach its fullest expression and 
culmination. 

A HIGH DEGREE OF CERTAINTY ATTAINABLE BY 
HISTORICAL EVIDENCE. 

3. It is a common mistake of the present age to 
underestimate the certainty which is arrived at through 
historical evidence. In the recent remarkable develop- 
ment of mathematical and experimental sciences, many 
persons seem to have lost sight of the fact that proba- 
ble evidence is still all we have to go upon when we 
venture a step beyond our intuitions and immediate per- 



12 The Witness of the New Testament. 

ceptions. Wherever mathematical formulae are applied 
to realities, the conclusions partake of the uncertainty 
which besets our knowledge of the real things which 
we multiply or divide,— in other words, proof ceases to 
be demonstrative; — while in direct perceptions all that 
we are absolutely certain of is that which comes within 
the sphere of immediate sensation, only a portion of 
which is carried along in our experience by memory. 
The conclusions reached by inductive reasoning are, 
therefore, from a mathematical point of view, defective. 
Yet they are all we have with which to guide our con- 
duct and direct our movements through illimitable 
space and unending time. As moral and practical be- 
ings, it is our business to form the best conclusions we 
can from the data which are given us, and act upon 
them according to the light we have. It is this which 
constitutes the moral trial of mankind. 

In the literature of the present day we often meet 
with such statements as that " we cannot prove the 
immortality of the soul," " we cannot prove the benev- 
olence of the Creator," " we cannot prove the genuine- 
ness of the Fourth Gospel or of the Second Epistle of 
Peter " ; and this by writers who would feel insulted 
if they were charged with disbelieving in immortality 
or in the benevolence of God, or of believing in the 
spuriousness of any of the books of the New Testament. 



The Witness of the New Testament. 13 

Nor would they be willing to be set down as pure ag- 
nostics respecting these questions. Many who. are given 
to such ill-considered statements both misrepresent 
themselves and confuse their readers by using the word 
" proof " in a sense which is proper only in the mathe- 
matical and purely demonstrative sciences. When they 
are questioned more carefully, it is usually found that 
they acknowledge such a preponderance of evidence 
upon many of these questions which they have said to 
be incapable of proof, that they firmly cherish their 
conclusions as practical beliefs, and use them as the 
guide of their lives. Thus do they illustrate the all- 
important truth that in the practical affairs of life we 
are not at liberty to demand any clearer and higher 
evidence than the nature of the subject will admit, and 
that, so long as there is a preponderance of evidence 
upon one side, we are to follow that, and permit it to 
shed what light it can upon the pathway of the future. 
But the evidences of Christianity are far from being 
of a low order. The truthfulness of the historical state- 
ments made in the New Testament is capable of being 
established to a very high degree of certainty; so that 
the Christian system, so far as it rests upon those state- 
ments, takes high rank among the inductive sciences as 
they are regarded even in the twentieth century. Any 
one who should doubt the general historical statements 



14 The Witness of the New Testament. 

current concerning the career of Alexander the Great, 
or of Julius Caesar, or of Charlemagne, or of Napoleon 
Bonaparte, either is grossly ignorant or has a very ab- 
normally constituted mind. Without stopping to ana- 
lyze the evidence through which we arrive at this 
impregnable belief concerning such historical careers, 
we can affirm with perfect assurance that these and 
innumerable similar beliefs are as firmly established, 
and approach as near to certainty, as any of the con- 
clusions arrived at by inductive reasoning. History is 
an inductive science whose central facts are as certain 
as those of any other inductive science, and whose range 
of uncertainty is no greater when one gets away from 
their central conclusions. Indeed, we know less about 
the borderlands of chemistry, astronomy, and geology 
than we do about the borderland of human history. 1 

HISTORICAL EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

In order to get started upon our investigation of the 
foundations of Old Testament history, it will be profit- 
able, and indeed necessary, to give a resume of the 
evidence upon which we receive the New Testament as 
a correct historical representation of the origin of 
Christianity; for Christianity is most clearly an out- 
growth of Jewish history, and, to a degree which is 
now too often disregarded or denied, the New Testa- 



The Witness of the New Testament. 15 

ment is sponsor to the Old, and sets us upon an inves- 
tigation of Old Testament history with presumptions 
regarding its truthfulness which are of the highest 
evidential value. 

He who inherits Christianity as his birthright is so 
early made familiar with Christian civilization that it 
is difficult to realize that it is not a natural product of 
the world in which he lives. On every hand he sees 
churches dedicated to the worship of Jesus Christ, and, 
upon entering them, joins in services which from be- 
ginning to end center upon the personal history of the 
Founder to whom the building is dedicated. At the 
beginning of the services Christ's blessing is invoked. 
The anthems of the choir and the hymns of the con- 
gregation sound aloud the praises of Christ. Some 
portion of the Bible is read with solemn reverence. 
The sermon is an exposition of some text of this sacred 
scripture. The audience is dismissed with the benedic- 
tion of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 

Gathered about these churches are numerous other 
less formal agencies for impressing the reality of this 
history upon the minds of the young. The ordinances 
of baptism and the Lord's Supper give unique promi- 
nence to the central historical facts of Christ's life; 
while the daily use of the calendar, which reckons time 
from the birth of the Founder of Christianity, compels 



1 6 The Witness of the New Testament. 

even the most reluctant to do homage to the Divine 
Master. In short, he who is born in a Christian land 
is, at the outset, launched upon a mighty stream of 
Christian influences which every one with the clearness 
of direct intuition sees must have an adequate fountain- 
head. 

The normal human mind is so constituted that it 
cannot easily disengage itself from the presumption that 
so powerful and beneficent a stream of influence as 
Christianity is, must have originated through some 
such historical facts as are recorded in the sacred books 
which are now read in the churches. So strong is 
this presumption, that one is not at liberty to disregard 
it, except upon obtaining abundant evidence to the 
contrary. The very existence of Christianity as em- 
bodied in the ordinances and Christian activities of the 
church is its strongest evidence, and, in absence of 
proof to the contrary, is entitled to absolute sway. The 
burden of proof does not properly fall upon the defend- 
ers of Christianity, but upon those who attack it and 
endeavor to overthrow it. Its position is like that of 
a man or woman of good repute, whose character is 
not to be challenged except upon the presentation of 
adequate positive evidence. Even a criminal is not 
compelled to prove his innocence, but is allowed sim- 
ply to defend himself against the definite charges of his 



The Witness of the New Testament. 17 

accusers. The evidential value of such presumptions 
should not be overlooked. In a well-established system 
the general presumptions in its favor rightfully prevail 
until all objections are definitely supported by positive 
evidence. The acceptance of the theory of gravitation, 
for example, is not rendered untenable by the fact that 
there are many movements of the heavenly bodies that 
cannot yet be brought clearly in harmony with it 
through definite knowledge of the causes producing the 
movements. 

For the majority of Christian believers, this general 
evidence is sufficient, and the confidence they repose 
in it is amply justified by the principles of inductive 
logic. The tree is known by its fruits. The fruits of 
Christianity abound on every hand in the noble char- 
acters and the beneficent institutions of Christian civi- 
lization ; while the adaptation of Christianity to the 
wants of the individual soul is so perfect that it cannot 
well be explained in any other way than on the theory 
of its truth. An insatiable hunger of the soul drives men 
to the acceptance of Christianity as starving men are 
led to welcome provisions for their bodily nourishment. 
In the case of Christianity the testimony of successive 
generations to its fitness for satisfying their spiritual 
hunger is evidence of the highest order. 

In the practical presentation of Christian evidences, 



1 8 The Witness of the New Testament. 

therefore, too much weight cannot be given to those 
facts which deepen in men their sense of sin and of 
dependence upon divine care. Under the influence of 
these facts the mind is stimulated to see and appreciate 
the wonderful adaptation of Christianity to human 
want, and to recognize the stamp of truth which lies 
in this fact of adaptation. It is therefore correct to say 
that the conviction of the truth of Christianity begins 
with the religious experience of the church. The con- 
viction of its truth by those who have experienced its 
saving power is like that of a starving man whose hun- 
ger has been satisfied by appropriate food. Not only 
does he have a conviction, resting in his own experience, 
that this food was designed to meet his want, but he is 
able to transmit the evidence which he has obtained 
through experience to others who are feeling a similar 
want. 

But, to those who wish to follow up these lines of 
evidence to their source, the means are readily at hand, 
and the process is as truly scientific as that which is 
pursued in any of the inductive sciences; while the 
conclusiveness of the evidence is such as cannot be de- 
nied by any one who gives it adequate and candid at- 
tention. For we find no break in the continuity of the 
historical evidences of Christianity until we reach the 
early part of the second century, or to a point of time 



The Witness of the New Testament. 19 

which is separated from the crucifixion of Christ by 
less than one hundred years. Up to this point no one 
would now have the hardihood to deny that the New 
Testament, substantially as we have it to-day, has been 
universally regarded by Christian believers as genuine 
and authentic. It was made the basis of comment and 
instruction, in exactly, the same way, by Origen, Tertul- 
lian, and Clement of Alexandria at the beginning of the 
third century, and by Irenseus in the last quarter of 
the second century, that it is by Christian teachers at 
the present time. The four Gospels were the sole 
source from which Justin Martyr, in the middle of the 
second century, drew the facts with which he en- 
deavored to convince the Roman emperor of the impor- 
tance and truth of the Christian system ; while, by a 
remarkable series of recent discoveries, we have had 
brought to light the fact that the long-lost " Diatessa- 
ron " of Tatian, prepared by a pupil and companion of 
Justin Martyr about the middle of the second century, 
is nothing else than a harmony of the four Gospels, 
such as is prepared at the present time for the conven- 
ience of the Christian public. In the light of these dis- 
coveries there is now no one left to challenge the state- 
ment that the four Gospels substantially in their present 
form were, at the very beginning of the second century, 
recognized as the sole depository of the facts of Christ's 



20 The Witness of the New Testament. 

life which have been the basis of his developing system 
of truth. 

As a scientific problem the question is, to determine 
how at so early a date such a peculiar literature as is 
found in the New Testament could come into existence, 
be so widely accepted, and secure such controlling in- 
fluence over so many companies of men scattered over 
the entire Roman Empire. For a determination of this 
question, we have as a basis our general knowledge of 
the weaknesses of human nature and the limitations of 
the human mind, which enables us to perceive the ex- 
treme difficulty, if not impossibility, of producing such a 
literature and giving it such influence at the beginning 
of the second century, except it were a record of actual 
facts and a revelation of heaven-born truth. The beauty, 
the pathos, the sublimity, of the portraiture of Christ 
given by the four evangelists is readily perceived to 
surpass all products of the merely human imagination ; 
for it is easily seen that no subsequent artists have ever 
touched that picture except to mar it. So convincing 
are the lineaments of this portraiture, that it draws 
from unbelievers, as well as believers, such expressions 
as those of Napoleon : — 

" ' I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Chnst is 
not a man. 

" ' Superficial minds may see some resemblance be- 



The Witness of the New Testament. 21 

tween Christ and the founders of empires, the con- 
querors, and the gods of other religions. That resem- 
blance does not exist.' " 

" ' I see in Lycurgus, Numa, Confucius, and Ma- 
homet merely legislators. . . . But it is different with 
Christ. Everything about Him astonishes me; His 
spirit surprises me, and His will confounds me. Be- 
tween Him and anything of this world there is no 
possible term of comparison. He is really a Being 
apart. His ideas and His emotions, the truth which 
He announces, His method of producing conviction, 
can be explained neither by the organization of man nor 
by the nature of things.' " 

" ' His gospel, the uniqueness of this mysterious Be- 
ing, His appearance, His empire, His march across ages 
and kingdoms, all is to me a marvel, a mystery unfath- 
omable : a mystery which I cannot deny, and yet which 
I am just as unable to explain. Here I see nothing of 
man. The nearer I approach Him and the more closely 
I examine Him, the more everything seems above me ; 
everything continues great with a greatness that 
crushes me.' " 

Christ speaks, and henceforth generations belong 
to Him by bonds more close, more intimate than those 
of blood, by a union more sacred, more imperious than 
any other union beside. He kindles the flame of a love 
which kills out the love of self, and prevails over every 
other love. Without contradiction, the greatest miracle 
of Christ is the reign of love.' " 

' ' What an abyss between my profound misery and 



22 The Witness of the New Testament. 

the eternal reign of Christ, proclaimed, worshiped, be- 
loved, adored, living throughout the whole universe.' " 2 

Or of Rousseau, who exclaims: — 

" If the life and death of Socrates were those of a 
sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God. 
Shall we suppose the evangelical history a mere fiction ? 
Indeed, my friend, it bears no marks of fiction. On the 
contrary, the history of Socrates, which no one presumes 
to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. 
Such a. supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty 
without obviating it; it is more inconceivable that a 
number of persons should agree to write such a history, 
than that one should furnish the subject of it. The 
Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and 
strangers to the morality contained in the gospel. The 
marks of its truths are so striking and inimitable, that 
the inventor would be a more astonishing character 
than the hero." 3 

The theory that the life of Christ given us in the 
four Gospels is the work of imposition, either on the 
part of the actors or of the historians, is too incredible 
to demand attention in these times. Nor does the the- 
ory of delusion, in its various forms, stand any better 
chance of passing the scientific tests. The general ac- 
ceptance of the four Gospels in the early part of the 
second century stamps them as substantially contem- 
porary documents. They could not have been 
received so generally, and made the basis of Chris- 



The Witness of the New Testament. 23 

tian life in such widely separated communities, at 
that time, except they had come down with the im- 
primatur of the preceding generation, which was con- 
temporary with that of Christ. In so brief a time it 
is impossible that there should have been any material 
legendary accretions or mythical growth incorporated 
into such a narrative of facts. As it is not an easy 
thing- for an apprentice to improve upon the works of 
such masters as Raphael and Michael Angelo, which he 
could not touch but to reveal the work of his own 
bungling hand, so it would be practically impossible 
for any one to make additions to the inimitable narra- 
tives of the Gospels without betraying his human limi- 
tations. To take a single case : it would seem well-nigh 
impossible to invent or imagine an account of the con- 
ception and birth of Christ so appropriate to his subse- 
quent history as that which is found in the Gospels. It 
has no resemblance to anything else that is found in 
literature. As a record of actual fact, it is in harmony 
with everything else related of Christ. He is a very 
bold dogmatician who would assert that the beauty 
and harmony of this conception is within the reach of 
the human imagination. 

More tangible illustrations of the freedom of the 
New Testament from the legendary accretions of later 
times may be found in the accuracy with which it re- 



24 The Witness of the New Testament. 

fleets the known conditions of the first half of the first 
century, in which the events purport to have occurred. 
The political, geographical, and sociological conditions 
of that period are so peculiar, and so sharply separated 
from those which followed the destruction of Jerusalem, 
that literature originating in the last portion of the 
century could not have simulated the conditions of the 
earlier part of the century so perfectly as does the«New 
Testament. 

There is no reasonable doubt that the first three Gos- 
pels were written before the destruction of Jerusalem, 
nor indeed that the Fourth Gospel was written by one 
who studiously clung to a statement of facts that had be- 
come firmly fixed in form before that event. 4 The only 
theory left, therefore, for the origin of the Gospels, ex- 
cept that which assumes their truth as history, is that the 
contemporaries of Christ were deluded by their excited 
imaginations; and this, indeed, is the theory which is 
now being urgently pressed upon the attention of the 
public. But the more one emphasizes the ecstatic state 
of mind which it is supposed would follow the depres- 
sion caused in the minds of his disciples by the betrayal, 
the crucifixion, and the death of Christ, the more 
improbable does it become that such sober-minded nar- 
ratives should be the product of that ecstasy. The 
mysterious silence of the Gospels concerning the most 



The Witness of the New Testament. 25 

of the period between the resurrection and the ascension 
is incredible on any theory but that of truth of the 
narratives. Most certainly the imagination of the 
writers was not given a free field in the matter. The 
general sobriety and practical wisdom which character- 
ized the disciples after the reputed resurrection and as- 
cension of their Lord are anything but characteristic 
of such ill-regulated excitement as must have followed 
mental delusion. 

Viewed from every point, the Gospels have all the 
marks of true history, whose statements can be re- 
ceived without question. The origin of Christianity 
through any theory of fraud or delusion involves the 
supposition of a greater violation of the laws of nature 
than does the supposition of its origin through the facts 
as recorded in the New Testament. It is a more in- 
credible supposition that crafty or deluded men should 
rise to the capacity of forging the character of Jesus and 
setting him in the position he occupies in history than 
that God should have condescended to reveal himself 
through man as he is believed to have done by the 
Christian church. 

The existence of such a firm historical basis for the 
foundation of Christianity prepares us of itself to find 
true history in the preliminary stages of the divine plan 
of salvation. It is but natural to expect that He who 



26 The Witness of the New Testament. 

in these last days has spoken to the world through his 
son should in earlier times have spoken through holy 
men and prophets, and have made in the history of his 
chosen people the needful preparation for the culminat- 
ing results. This expectation is fully realized upon 
observing the esteem in which the Old Testament was 
held by Christ and the writers of the New Testament. 

THE OLD TESTAMENT INDORSED BY THE NEW. 

At the beginning of the Christian era, the Penta- 
teuch was generally regarded by the Jews as authentic 
history, and Moses was believed to be the responsible 
author of it. In the words of Professor Toy, one of 
the most radical critics of Old Testament history, 
" Nobody at that time doubted that Moses wrote the 
Pentateuch." The references of the New Testament 
writers, therefore, to " the law of Moses," " the book 
of Moses," " the writings of Moses," etc., had a 
definite significance. The only way of evading the force 
of the testimony of these direct references to its Mosaic 
authorship is either to challenge the competency of the 
New Testament writers to form opinions upon the 
subject, or to assert that their language is accommo- 
dated to the usage of the times, and so has no critical 
significance. 

Both of these methods are freely resorted to by certain 



The Witness of the New Testament. 27 

classes of critics. By some it is confidently asserted that 
the apostles are not competent instructors in the inter- 
pretation of the Old Testament. But of this view we 
will not pause to speak further, except to lament the 
unguarded remarks which have been made to this effect 
by many recent writers whom we are glad to reckon 
both as eminent scholars and as serious inquirers after 
the truth. Whether the force of the testimony of 
Christ and the apostles to the Mosaic authorship of 
the Pentateuch can be evaded by the theory of accom- 
modation must be determined by examining the testi- 
mony itself. 

In view both of the general belief of his times 
respecting the Pentateuch and of its own claims (of 
which we shall presently speak), it would seem that 
nobody can reasonably deny that there is convincing 
force in those passages which refer to the offering that 
" Moses commanded " (Matt. viii. 4) ; to the scribes 
and Pharisees who sit " on Moses' seat " (Matt, xxiii. 
2) ; to one of the commandments which " Moses said " 
(Mark vii. 10) ; to Moses and the prophets "as wit- 
nesses of such weight that one rising from the dead 
would not be superior to them" (Luke xvi. 29, 31) ; 
to circumcision as a law which " Moses had given " 
(John vii. 22, 23) ; and to divorce as permitted by a 
precept which " Moses wrote" (Mark x. 2-5). 



28 The Witness of the New Testament. 

In view of the usage of language in Christ's time, 
it seems, also, much like an unworthy subterfuge to say 
that, when (as in Mark xii. 19, 26; Matt. xxii. 23- 
32; Luke xx. 27-38) Jesus refers to a passage which 
he says they have " read in the book of Moses, in the 
place concerning the bush," he meant not a book writ- 
ten by Moses, but a book written about Moses. This 
impression is strengthened by the fact that, in the im- 
mediate connection, the Sadducees, whom Christ was 
addressing, introduced one of their questions by saying, 
" Master, Moses wrote unto us," etc. Finally, in John 
v. 45-47, Christ says expressly, " Moses wrote of me," 
and refers to the " writings of Moses," which, if they 
understood and believed, would rebuke their unbelief 
concerning him. There can be no reasonable question 
that in this last passage Christ bears unequivocal testi- 
mony to the fact that there were well-known writings 
of Moses, and that an appeal to them was an appeal to 
Moses. Ordinarily this would be enough to determine 
what writings were meant. 

But in the mode of his references Christ had made 
assurance doubly sure. For what are the writings of 
Moses which the Jews regarded as prophetic of Christ ? 
They are those which contain such passages as the ones 
which speak of the seed of the woman as destined to 
bruise the serpent's head (Gen. iii. 15) ; of the seed of 



The Witness of the New Testament. 29 

Abraham, by which all nations of the earth were to 
be blessed (Gen. xii.) ; of the Shiloh unto whom shall 
be the gathering of the people (Gen. xlix. 10) ; of the 
Star out of Jacob, and the Scepter that shall rise out of 
Israel (Num. xxiv. 17) ; of the great Prophet whom 
God will raise up, and unto whom the Jews should 
hearken (Deut. xviii. 18) ; and, finally, of the serpent 
in the wilderness, which Christ himself interpreted as 
pointing to himself (Num. xxi. 9 ; John iii. 14). Now 
these are from all the parts of the Pentateuch into 
which the critics have arbitrarily divided it. 

Did space permit, much might be added from the 
writings of the apostles, where both their direct refer- 
ences and their numerous lines of argument are based 
on the assumption that the statements in the Pentateuch 
concerning the sacrifices, the tabernacle, the priests, and 
the general history of the wanderings in the wilderness 
are true. It should also be borne in mind in all this 
discussion that it is the truth with which we have most 
concern. But it is hardly fair to say that, if the his- 
tory contained in the Pentateuch is true, it is not much 
matter when it was written, since the truthfulness of 
the Pentateuch implies that it is a product of the Mo- 
saic age. For certainly, if, as a Jewish writer has re- 
cently observed, the book was written near enough the 
time of Moses to be authentic history, and yet not by 



30 The Witness of the New Testament. 

Moses, then it is a forgery which was fraudently passed 
as a Mosaic production ; while if, as so many critics now 
maintain, it originated by the embellishment of old 
traditions several hundred years after Moses, then its 
history is of no account, and it is both false and ficti- 
tious. 

We need not pause to dispute the position held by 
some, that the historical parts of the Pentateuch are, 
in the main, true, although they were preserved only 
through oral tradition for many centuries. For how- 
ever much we may exaggerate the powers of memory 
in primitive man, it is hardly to be supposed that it 
could transmit with accuracy prosaic facts through an 
indefinite number of generations. Besides, the super- 
abundant evidence we now have of the prevalence of 
writing on tablets of clay (the most enduring of all 
material) for thousands of years before the time of 
Moses, and preeminently among the nations with whom 
Israel came in contact, renders it altogether probable 
that it was used by the Israelites. It would have been 
very strange if they alone should have trusted their 
history to memory, when they could so easily have pre- 
served it on clay tablets. 5 

On turning now to the books which Christ's auditors 
understood him to refer to when he spoke of the " law 
of Moses" and of "the writings of Moses," etc., we 



The Witness of the New Testament. 31 

find that almost every chapter of Exodus, Leviticus, 
and Numbers is said to contain things which the " Lord 
spake unto Moses," or which " Moses did according to 
all that the Lord had commanded him " ; and that in 
Ex. xxiv. 4 it is said that " Moses wrote all the words 
of the Lord," referring at least to the three or four pre- 
ceding chapters; and in Ex. xvii. 14 that Moses was 
commanded to " write " certain things for a memorial 
in a book; and that, again, in xxxiv. 27, Moses was 
commanded to " write " certain other things ; while in 
Deuteronomy we find that more than nine-tenths of the 
matter professes to proceed directly from the mouth of 
Moses; and in xxxi. 9 it is said that " Moses wrote this 
law, and delivered it unto the priests," and in verse 10 
that he left commandment that it should be read every 
seven years in the ears of all the people and, finally, 
in verses 24-26, we are told that when " Moses had 
made an end of writing the words of this law in a 
book," he said to the Levites, " Take this book of the 
law, and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant 
of Jehovah your God, that it may be there for a wit- 
ness against thee." 

Such, in brief, is the testimony of the New Testa- 
ment to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. 
Granting that this may possibly be rebutted or set aside, 
still it remains true that the burden of proof lies with 



32 The Witness of the New Testament. 

heavy weight upon those who would explain it away, 
and we may properly ask of them to produce the very 
best of evidence, and, as their evidence must be all cir- 
cumstantial, we can demand of them that it be that 
which is unequivocal, and which does not yield as 
ready explanation in accordance with the strong direct 
testimony adduced, as in accordance with the theory 
that discredits the direct testimony. We have a right 
in all equivocal cases to claim for the well-accredited 
witness the benefit of whatever doubt may exist. To 
do otherwise is to fly in the face of the fundamental 
laws of evidence, and to abandon all just claims to 
scientific: procedure. 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 33 



CHAPTER II. 

MIDDLE AND LATER JEWISH HISTORY. 

There are different ways of writing history. In- 
deed, history may properly include every variety of 
literature, and has a right to the use of all forms of 
speech and all figures of rhetoric. Historical language, 
like every other kind, can claim the benefit of fair 
interpretation. The late Professor Stubbs insisted that 
no historian could tell the truth when writing in the 
style of Macaulay. The difficulty was that so pro- 
saic a writer as Professor Stubbs did not know how to 
interpret that more rhetorical style which is designed 
to make an adequate popular impression. 

Even the ordinary affairs of life can be truthfully de- 
scribed in such opposite ways that they seem to be 
contradictory. A tornado or a lightning stroke is cor- 
rectly described, either as the result of the operation of 
natural forces which can be scientifically investigated, 
or as the result of a divine purpose of Him " who 
maketh his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of 
fire." This is but the statement of a well-known legal 
principle, that a person is properly said to do whatever 
he accomplishes through his agent. In a military cam- 



34 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

paign, glory is equally distributed between the com- 
mander-in-chief and the army in all its organizations. 
And so, in all the affairs of the world, no amount of 
emphasis upon the secondary causes need obscure the 
agency of the divine mind which controls and orders 
them. 

Did we not have so many lamentable illustrations of 
the fact, it would seem impossible that learned men 
of great discernment in other respects should be misled 
by the anthropomorphic elements in Old Testament 
history. History can be told in poetry as well as in 
prose. Much of Old Testament history, indeed, is 
incorporated into the hymns we sing. Ordinarily the 
common sense of mankind is better able to judge the 
poetical garb, and interpret the rhetorical figures, than 
is the learning of critics whose studies have limited 
them to a narrow line of investigation. 

In Milton's version of the One Hundred and 
Thirty-sixth Psalm, it would be childish to impute to 
him either scientific or historic error, by reason of the 
various figures of speech through which, with the 
psalmist, he traces all of the phenomena of the history 
of the world directly to the agency of God. We can 
permit him to sing, and indeed, without compromising 
ourselves, sing with him, those noble phrases ascribing 
praise to the Lord. — 



Middle and Later Jewish Histoj-y. 35 

" [Who] caus'd the golden-tressed sun, 
All the day long his course to run ; 

The horned moon to shine by night, 
Amongst her spangled sisters bright." 

" His chosen race he did bless. 
In the wasteful wilderness. 

In bloody battle, he brought down 
Kings of prowess and renown. 

He foil'd bold Seon and his host 
That rul'd the Amorrean coast ; 

And large-limbed Og he did subdue, 
With all his overhardy crew." 

" All living creatures he doth feed, 
And with full hand supplies their need." 

In the words of the devout Keil, when commenting 
on Joshua x. 12-14, — 

[When] Isaiah prayed to the Lord in the name of 
his people, ' O that thou wouldest rend the heavens 
and come down, that the mountains might flow down at 
thy presence,' etc. (Isa. lxiii. 19) ; or when David sings, 
' In my distress I called upon the Lord, ... he bowed 
the heavens also and came down, ... he sent from 
above and took me, he drew me out of many waters ' 
(Ps. xviii. 7—17) ; who is there who ever thinks of 
understanding their words literally, as denoting an 
actual rending of the heavens, or a desire that God 



36 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

would actually descend from heaven and stretch out 
his hand to draw David out of the water? Undoubt- 
edly the idea of a fearful storm accompanied by earth- 
quake has furnished materials for the imagery of the 
eighteenth Psalm; but it is as clear as day that the 
striking figures, which it contains, are not fully ex- 
plained by referring them to an earthquake and storm." 

In all these figures of speech there are underlying 
facts which, in some of their aspects, are correctly 
stated. The historian who fails to recognize the hand 
of God underneath the secondary agencies of history 
sees but a part of the truth, and that the smaller and 
more unimportant part. We are familiar enough in 
these days with the statement that the Old Testament 
was written for a purpose, and that that purpose was 
religious. With this, principle we have no reason to 
quarrel. But from many of the applications of it we 
have much reason for dissent. To the assumption, more 
or less clearly made, that literature written for a pur- 
pose can convey no substantial nucleus of facts, we do 
object in the most emphatic manner. At the same time 
it must be affirmed that the discernment of the general 
purpose of a writer is of great assistance in the inter- 
pretation of his language. To make the proper impres- 
sion, certain phases of the truth must be emphasized, 
or, what is the same thing, thrown into apparently 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 37 

disproportionate prominence, to the neglect of other 
phases, which are equally true, but for the occasion not 
equally important. 

Both the difficulty and the importance of giving 
proper emphasis, through language, to the main object 
which it is desirable to accomplish, are well illustrated 
in the art of cartography. Our government map- 
makers are busily engaged in recording, in visible form, 
the results of the geodetic surveys. After going over 
the field with their accurate triangulations, to deter- 
mine the contours of the surface of an area, the sur- 
veyors present their notes to the cartographer. To their 
surprise, the surveyors often find that the map-maker 
habitually exaggerates certain features in the results of 
the survey. The contour lines are indeed there, but 
they occupy a breadth upon the map which is many 
times larger than, in strict proportion, it should be. All 
the gorges and valleys and mountain ranges are de- 
lineated upon the map wider than they really are. 

When the cartographer is confronted with this fact, 
he replies, " Why, my dear sir, if I should endeavor 
to represent the vertical and the horizontal lines of 
measurement in their strict proportions, you could not 
see the contours at all. You would be more misled by 
an attempt to draw things as they actually are, than 
you are by the exaggeration, which enables you to really 



38 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

see something, and trusts your imagination to correct 
the apparent error by a sober second thought." 

And so it is in all attempts at delineating natural 
scenery through the art of drawing or painting. A 
photograph of a distant mountain, while giving the 
exact truth, deceives one as to the real impressiveness 
of the scene. The skillful draughtsman makes a 
proper impression by omitting innumerable details, and 
throwing into relief the main object under considera- 
tion. The classic painters of the Western world give 
perspective to natural scenery by correctly representing 
the apparent diminution of distant objects in their im- 
pression upon the eye, owing to the diminished angle 
of vision, and by deepening the color, which, in nature, 
is the result of the greater depth of atmosphere through 
which distant objects are seen. The Japanese, on the 
other hand, very effectively and skillfully give perspec- 
tive to their pictures by enlargement of the distant 
mountain scenes, which is the exact opposite of the im- 
pression made upon the senses. Their excuse for this is 
that they paint as they feel, and not as they see. And 
why not? The painter, like the poet, has his appro- 
priate license. We do not charge Raphael with either 
ignorance or falsity when he paints eleven sturdy apos- 
tles fishing from a boat which is scarcely larger than 
a child's toy. It was not his purpose, in the painting, 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 39 

to represent all he knew about the boat; and so that 
could be represented conventionally, as we say, and no- 
body but an ignoramus either complains of it or mis- 
understands it. Indeed, the highest art of pictorial 
representation is found, not in those pictures which 
represent in minutest detail every accessory of the scene, 
but in those which concentrate attention upon the main 
point, and leave the rest in the comparatively indistinct 
background. 

These principles are especially applicable to those 
condensed historical statements and descriptions of 
natural phenomena which characterize the early por- 
tions of the Bible. The obvious purpose, for example, 
of the first chapter of Genesis, was to impart not 
scientific but religious truth, and to do this in such 
concise and striking form that it could be easily ap- 
propriated and retained by men of all classes and ages, 
of all stages of culture. It is one of the most astonish- 
ing literary phenomena in all the world that this end 
has been accomplished without violence to the principles 
of later scientific discovery. 

Again, the object of the brief history of the human 
race from the creation to the time of Abraham, covering 
a period of unknown thousands of years, was likewise 
religious, serving to give us a brief conspectus of events 
which should so unfold the depths of human nature, 



40 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

and the general plan of God's dealings with it, as to 
prepare us properly to appreciate the more definite his- 
tory of redemption which begins with Abraham and 
ends with Christ. Professor William Henry Green has 
done a service for biblical criticism which is as yet by 
no means properly recognized, in showing that, in ac- 
cordance with the usages of Hebrew literature, and 
with the evident special purpose of its introductory 
portions, the genealogical tables in the fifth and tenth 
chapters of Genesis were not designed to teach, and do 
not teach, a definite chronology: they serve simply to 
throw emphasis upon the direct line of descent, without 
shedding any definite light upon the length of that 
line. 1 

All history is fragmentary. The story of no event is 
ever fully told. The omission of details in one parallel 
account which are not found in another is not necessar- 
ily significant. The statement of a biblical historian 
need not be regarded with incredulity simply because it 
stands alone. It may be true though not distinctly con- 
firmed by other witnesses. To assume, as many do, 
that biblical statements are to be disregarded except 
when directly supported by other documents is a most 
unscientific procedure. 

With these preliminary cautions, we will now, pre- 
paratory to the further discussion of the earlier por- 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 41 

tions, which will form the principal subject of our 
study, briefly consider some of the more striking facts 
which give an air of reality to the later part of Bible 
history. 

CONNECTING LINKS OF THE ARGUMENT. 

To determine the character of the earlier historical 
documents of the Bible, and to prepare our minds for 
their proper appreciation and interpretation, we shall 
find it helpful to trace backward the history of Israel 
through its later and middle portions, where we have 
fuller opportunities to compare the record with con- 
temporary documents; thus giving us a wider basis 
for the formation of general conclusions concerning its 
trustworthiness. For, whatever may be said about the 
fragmentary character of the documents preserved in 
the Old Testament, they have been arranged, by no 
ordinary skill, to form a unity that is remarkable. The 
sagacious ability with which the final editors of the 
Old Testament have selected their material, and pre- 
served only such as is either demonstrably in accordance 
with the facts as known from other sources, or such as 
could readily be adjusted to such facts without doing 
violence to their necessary implications,* gives to them 
a high place as historical authorities, and leads us, un- 
less we have evidence to the contrary, to accept as 
trustworthy what thev have transmitted to us. In 



42 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

other words, our attitude of mind should be one of 
confidence, rather than of agnosticism or distrust. The 
burden of proof falls with great weight upon those 
who challenge documents so authentic as these of the 
Old Testament seem to be. 2 

In moving, then, backwards, along the line of Old 
Testament records, towards the origin of the Israelitish 
nation, and towards the original fountain of hope both 
for Israel and the world, it will be our aim to show that 
it is not easy to escape the conviction that we are contin- 
ually in the realm of genuine history, surrounded by 
real persons, and dealing with real sociological and 
political developments. The story of the return of the 
Jews to Palestine after their long captivity in Baby- 
lonia, the rebuilding of the temple, and the separation 
between the Jews and the Samaritans, so accords with 
the great historical movements of that time and place 
as they are made known through other and independent 
channels of information, that its truthfulness cannot 
easily be doubted. The existence of the little remnant 
of Samaritans at Nablus, with their Pentateuch and 
their devotion to their worshiping-place upon Mount 
Gerizim, is a fact meeting our eyes to-day which has 
no explanation, except in connection with some such 
occurrences as are narrated in the concluding historical 
books of the Old Testament ; while the return of a 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 43 

selected remnant of Jewish captives accords so perfectly 
with the political changes now known to have taken 
place in Babylonia at that time, that one can but find 
it difficult to discredit the account or believe it to be 
anything but genuine history. 

HISTORICAL SETTING OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 

According to all contemporary accounts, there was 
in Babylon a change of policy with the change of dy- 
nasties ushered in by Cyrus. The new policy was one 
of religious toleration. We need not, indeed, go so 
far as to suppose that Cyrus was a monotheist or a 
follower of Zoroaster. He was likely a polytheist, and 
as such recognized the Jews, and granted to them their 
privileges of belief. Upon the clay cylinder of Cyrus 
describing the capture of Babylon, it is definitely stated 
that it is his policy to honor and protect all the gods 
of the various peoples that come under his rule, and to 
restore exiles to their original dwelling-places. "All 
of their peoples " (that is, of the captive and dethroned 
deities), he says, " I gathered together and restored to 
their own dwelling-places." Likewise it fell in with 
the plans of Cyrus, as a far-seeing statesman, to restore 
Palestine to its condition of original prosperity, and to 
establish in it a people having such reason to be loyal 
to himself that he might trust them as a bulwark 



44 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

against the encroachments of Eg3^pt, and as allies in 
the contemplated extension of his dominion over the 
valley of the Nile. 3 

This general conformity of the biblical account to 
the political conditions of Bab}4onia at that time, 
brought to light by recent discoveries, is evidence strong 
enough to dispose of almost any amount of petty ob- 
jections arising from minute apparent discrepancies in 
chronology, or differences in names applied to the same 
person; for these objections might all easily disappear 
upon a complete restoration of the history. 

In the book of Daniel, likewise, we find ourselves 
moving, so far as we can verify the statements, in a 
most remarkable environment of historical reality. The 
scenes which are brought before us are perfectly in 
accord with the manners and customs of the people, and 
with the characteristics of the dynasties to which they 
relate. In this respect they bear the marks of a con- 
temporary document. So great were the changes which 
took place between the earlier parts of Daniel's career 
and its closing scenes, that we may pronounce it a 
literary impossibility for fiction of any sort to have so 
perfectly simulated the facts of the time as does the 
historical part of the book of Daniel. The objections 
which are made to its historical character are almost 
wholly based upon repugnance to the admission of mir- 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 45 

acles into the circle of our beliefs, or to an undue 
magnifying of small apparent discrepancies which can 
be easily explained away. As to the miraculous events, 
they are not of a character to have been noticed by the 
national historians of Babylonia; and whether they are 
too improbable to be believed will depend entirely upon 
the importance of the religious crisis which had then 
come to the Lord's chosen people. We should therefore 
have to discuss that question upon general principles, 
which we cannot well delay to do here. 

Limiting ourselves to one of the most striking and 
apparently improbable statements, we note that the ac- 
count of Nebuchadnezzar's abasement given in the book 
of Daniel proves, in the light of modern medical sci- 
ence, to be strictly in accordance with the probabilities 
connected with a certain form of mental disorder. As 
is shown in a learned article by Dr. Merrins, 4 it was 
a case of melancholia, such as is quite likely to affect 
a man of his character; for this disease, like death, loves 
a shining mark. As appears both from Scripture and 
monumental records, Nebuchadnezzar was a man of 
immense intellectual power and of marked religious de- 
votion. But his successes, both in foreign conquests and 
in the development of all the interests of Babylonia, 
coupled with his autocratic power, appear to have made 
of him a megalomaniac. At the zenith of his power he 



46 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

frequently gave way to terrible outbursts of passion, as 
in his treatment of the wise men of Babylon who were 
unable to interpret his dream, and in his consigning 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego to the fiery furnace; 
while his growing spiritual pride exhibits itself in set- 
ting up an enormous golden image (probably of him- 
self) on the plain of Dura, and commanding every one 
to worship it. The climax of his spiritual pride 
appeared in his exalting himself against the Most 
High, and openly expressing the conviction that " all 
this greatness and glory had been won by the strength 
of his own right arm." " Is not this great Babylon, 
which I have built for the royal dwelling-place, by the 
might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?" 
As is natural in such cases, it was from the summit of 
self-exaltation that he plunged into the depths of de- 
spair. The results which followed are by no means 
uncommon. During these periods of depression, the 
victim of melancholia frequently withdraws himself 
from the world until " at last he sinks into a state of 
stolid stupor, is wholly absorbed in his mental agony, 
is confused as to his personal identity, neglects to eat, 
and is careless and dirty in his appearance and habits." 
His eating grass and suffering the hair and nails to 
grow give a vivid impression of the depth to which his 
melancholia had driven him. 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 47 

Also, according to Dr. Merrins: — 

" As to restoration to sanity, the prognosis in cases 
of melancholia is favorable, much more so than in any 
other form of insanity. A majority of the patients re- 
cover, even at an advanced age and after years of the 
most intense mental disorder. And recovery is often 
so very complete, that the highest and most active brain 
work is performed ; and so permanent, that a relapse 
never occurs during a long subsequent life. In some 
cases the recovery is gradual ; in others the malady dis- 
appears suddenly and mysteriously. Of one patient it 
is recorded that, after standing like a veritable statue 
of woe for fifteen months, neither speaking, nor eating, 
nor allowing anything to be done for him, he suddenly 
became mentally alert, conversed freely, and thereafter 
remained quite well for over twelve years. Another 
was in an insane asylum for thirty-four years. For 
fifteen years he sat with his head bent upon his chest, 
apparently regardless of everything about him. One 
evening, while sitting in the billiard-room without tak- 
ing any interest, he suddenly began to look about him; 
a few days after he was cheerful, in fact almost exu- 
berant, and it was not long before he was completely 
cured." 

" Neither is the king's remembrance of the circum- 
stances of his degradation and of the causes which led 
to it very remarkable. Patients on recovery are often 
able to tell what was their mental state immediately 
prior to their madness, and some are able to describe the 
whole course of their disease with its various delusions. 



48 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

Nebuchadnezzar knew his reason had been dethroned, 
and why the judgment came upon him, and after his 
recovery he was a better man. As in the case of King 
Lear of the dramatist, the madness has been purga- 
torial." 

It is hardly possible that such a description of the 
career of this great monarch as we find in the book of 
Daniel should have been a legendary accretion by 
which the real facts are embellished. The description 
accords so well with the natural development of the 
disease that it is difficult to believe it to be anything but 
a simple record of well-known facts. 5 

Two of the apparent historical discrepancies in the 
book of Daniel have had so much light shed upon them 
by recent discoveries, that they have come to be an 
argument for the credibility of the book, rather than 
against it. 

In the book of Daniel, Belshazzar is said to be 
the king, and Nebuchadnezzar is repeatedly referred to 
as his father; whereas, according to the monuments, 
Nabonidus was king. But we find upon the monu- 
ments numerous inscriptions of Nabonidus in which 
Bel-shar-uzur is referred to as his eldest son, his off- 
spring, who was associated with him in various 
transactions, and frequently put forth as his representa- 
tive wherever the king himself was absent. 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 49 

But it is by no means improbable that, as prince 
regent, he would be called king for an indefinite period 
before his father's death. For, thus Jehoram was ap- 
pointed by his father Jehoshaphat king of Judah seven 
years before his father's death (2 Kings i. 17 and viii. 
16) ; while Jotham was in similar manner made king of 
Judah before his father Uzziah had died of leprosy, 
though Uzziah is still called king in some of the ref- 
erences to him. It is thus, that, in a loose way, Neb- 
uchadnezzar may have been called the father of 
Belshazzar, though he may have been his grandfather, 
or only his predecessor on the throne. It is significant 
that, in the descriptions on the monuments of Shal- 
maneser II., Jehu, the extirpator of the house of Omri, 
is called the son of Omri. From this we learn, or 
should learn, that, according to Oriental usage, the 
phrases describing Belshazzar's relations to Nebuchad- 
nezzar need signify no more than that he was a suc- 
cessor. 

It should be noted, also, that nothing is said in the 
book of Daniel about the place of Belshazzar's feast. 
It probably was at Babylon, but it may not have been. 
Nor is anything said about the manner in which Baby- 
lon was captured. The doubtful statements upon these 
points are those which were made by the Greek histor- 
ians. The simple statement that' Darius the Mede 



50 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

received the kingdom must for the present be accepted 
upon the unconfirmed authority of the sacred historian. 
That it is not historically true has by no means been 
proved, and it is incapable of proof without our know- 
ing very much more about the events of the period 
than we now know from outside sources. 

The persistent efforts made by many to fix upon the 
book of Daniel a serious historical error in saying that 
after the death of Belshazzar " Darius the Median 
took the kingdom " (Dan. v. 31), all proceed upon the 
supposition that biblical statements not positively con- 
firmed by outside evidence are to be regarded as dis- 
proved. But, upon examination, the negative evidence 
in this particular case is very far from conclusive. For, 
the time which elapsed between the accession and the 
installation of Cambyses as king of Babylon is, accord- 
ing to the monuments, but one year. If Darius the 
Mede was in power for that time (and the Bible men- 
tions but one year), it is not strange that no record of 
it has yet been found among the inscriptions, since, as 
Professor Robert Dick Wilson has noted, " out of the 
ten years of the contemporaneous reigns of Cyrus and 
Cambyses only three tablets containing the names and 
titles of both have been found, — one from the first year 
(so called) of Cyrus, and two from the first year (so 
called) of Cambyses. How could we expect to find one 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 51 

from the four-months' reign of Belshazzar and Darius 
the Mede?" 

Furthermore, as, according to the Annals of Na- 
bonidus, Gobryas was governor of Babylon on the 
third of the eighth month, and Cambyses on the fourth 
of Nisan in the following year, it is plausibly main- 
tained by Pinches, and other scholars of highest note, 
that Darius the Mede of the Bible was probably the 
same as Gobryas of the monuments. With present light 
it is certainly impossible to prove the contrary. Still 
further, it is ably maintained by Professor Wilson that 
the word " Darius " may be a translation of the foreign 
word Gubaru; or perhaps the word " Darius " is from 
a Persian word meaning " king," and so was not a 
proper name in the strict sense of the word ; or possibly 
the individual here called Darius had two names, as 
did Rameses, Solomon, Artaxerxes, and Darius Nothus, 
each of whom was sometimes designated by another 
name. Again, in the Annals of Nabonidus, Gobryas is 
said to be the governor of the land of Gutium, which 
lay at the foot of the pass from Ninevah to Ecbatana, 
the capital of the Medes. He would, therefore, very 
properly be called a Mede. 

But the supposition that Gobryas and Darius are the 
same is not by any means the only one which might re- 
move the apparent discrepancy. Those who wish to 



52 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

examine the matter farther will find it fully discussed 
by Professor Wilson in the Appendix. 6 

But these difficulties, being chiefly those of inter- 
pretation, and being such as arise from our ignorance 
of the larger part of the facts connected with the his- 
tory, should count lightly in offsetting positive state- 
ments which in general are found closely to conform 
with the known conditions. It certainly counts for 
more than many writers are willing to admit, that this 
bold statement in Daniel that Belshazzar was king 
should be found supported by the monuments, which 
bring out the fact that Belshazzar, though so young 
and not himself sole king, was endowed by his father 
with the royal privileges, and so could properly receive 
the title ; and that the statements concerning Darius 
the Mede are not positively contradicted, but are so 
easily made to fit in to the genera! outline of the his- 
tory. 

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB'S ARMY. 

Fassing backwards to the time of Hezekiah, we come 
to the remarkable account of the invasion of Palestine 
by Sennacherib, and the opportune destruction of his 
army, on the plains of Philistia, before it had reached 
Jerusalem. The historical character of the account of 
this invasion given in Kings and Chronicles, and its 
disastrous conclusion, while not directly corroborated 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 53 

by contemporary Babylonian documents, is in the 
strongest manner indirectly supported both by them 
and by many general considerations. The Assyrian 
army on its way to Egypt was delayed on the unhealth- 
ful shores of the Mediterranean for the siege of 
Lachish and Libnah (2 Kings xviii. 14), and it was 
there, as would be most likely, that the catastrophe oc- 
curred. 

" The great highway of commerce and war between 
Asia and Africa, after leaving Gaza, the most southern 
Philistian city, passed near various salt marshes along 
the coast, the largest of which was known as the Ser- 
bonian Bog; from there the road passed to Pelusium 
and the delta of the Nile. The natural conditions of 
a hot, humid climate, and great stretches of mingled 
salt and fresh water, were such as to favor the devel- 
opment of any epidemic, and so also was the miserable 
condition of the people. ' The Serbonian Bog was 
surrounded by communities of salt-makers and fish- 
curers: filthy villages of under-sized and imbecile peo- 
ple who always had disease among them.' ' It is not 
surprising, therefore, to find that armies passing through 
this region were nearly always decimated by pestilence.' 
' It was here that .... in Justinian's time, the plague 
started more than once a course right across the world ; 
here a Crusading expedition showed symptoms of the 
plague; here in 1799 Napoleon's army was infected 
with the very fatal fievre a. bubons, and carried the dis- 
ease into Syria, while the Turkish force that marched 



54 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

south in 1 80 1, found the plague about Jaffa and in 
the delta.' " T 

In the very brief description of the biblical writer, 
the agency of the Lord is given prominence, though 
even then it is through an angel that the destruction is 
said to have been accomplished. In view of recent dis- 
coveries concerning such plagues as may reasonably be 
supposed to have been the immediate cause of the 
destruction of Sennacherib's army, over whom 

" The angel of death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed on the face of the foe as he passed," 

the references to the event by the profane historians are 
peculiarly interesting. Josephus attributes the catas- 
trophe to a plague, " a pestilential distemper " sent 
upon the army. 8 Recent medical authorities recognize 
it as the bubonic plague, with which we have lately 
become painfully familiar. One reason for thus assign- 
ing it is to be found in a curious statement of Hero- 
dotus, 9 that rats and mice played an important part in 
the tragedy. According to him, " field mice poured in 
upon the Assyrian army, devouring their quivers and 
their bows and the thongs of their shields, so that, on 
the next day, when they fled, bereft of their arms, many 
of them fell." It is a striking confirmation of the 
truthfulness of all these records, that, in the recent 
epidemics of the bubonic plague in India and China, 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 55 

it is found that they are characterized by an enormous 
exodus of rats, which are supposed to convey the con- 
tagion. 

Again quoting Dr. Merrins, — 

" It is now well known that many of the lower ani- 
mals, especially rats, and mice, and other rodents, and 
the parasites that infest them, are important agents in 
the propagation of plague, and die themselves in large 
numbers from it. Even before the plague attacks hu- 
man beings, it destroys these animals. In one of the 
most important and ancient of Hindoo writings, the 
people are instructed to quit their homes, and go to the 
plains, as soon as they observe that rats fall from the 
roof above, jump about, or die. In the recent Chinese 
epidemic, masses of dead rats were seen in the streets 
of Hongkong, and at one gate alone, in the city of 
Canton, the keeper collected and buried no less than 
twenty-four thousand of these animals." 

"As to the appalling mortality of over fifty thousand 
in the Philistian epidemic, and the death of one hun- 
dred and eighty-five thousand of Sennacherib's army, 
there need be little cavil. In the Justinian epidemic, a 
' myriad of myriads ' are said to have perished. In the 
European epidemic of the fourteenth century, twenty- 
five millions died. In the Great Plague of London of 
1665, about seventy thousand died. Six hundred thou- 
sand have died during the course of the present epi- 
demic in India [1904], and it is still pursuing its 
dreadful course." 



56 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

The suddenness of the destruction of the army de- 
scribed by the sacred writer, the liability of such epi- 
demics in the region said to have been occupied by the 
army, as given both by Josephus and the sacred writer, 
and the incidental mention by Herodotus of what we 
now know is a natural accompaniment of the bubonic 
plague, — all serve to give an air of historic reality to 
this account, which is most impressive. 

This explanation of the destruction of Sennacherib's 
army receives striking confirmation from the account 
given in i Sam. iv.-vi. of the plague which, several 
centuries before (about uoo B.C.) attacked the Philis- 
tines in the same region when they had possession of 
the ark. On that occasion the men were repeatedly 
smitten with " emerods in the secret parts " (v. 9), and 
great numbers died. One remedy proposed by the 
Philistines was to " make images of your mice that mar 
the land " (vi. 5). 10 

On comparing the Assyrian records of the period of 
Sennacherib with the biblical history, the air of reality 
in the biblical account is most strikingly confirmed, 
though there is no distinct reference to the disastrous 
ending of the campaign. In the Assyrian inscriptions, 
we are told that, in his third campaign, Sennacherib 
marched to the land of the Hittites, and passed on to 
the coast of Philistia, capturing numerous cities, and 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 57 

encountered the Egyptian army. But meanwhile 
" Hezekiah of Judah, who had not submitted to my 
yoke .... w T as shut up like a bird in a cage in Jerusa- 
lem, his royal city." But while mention is made of 
the capture of many of the minor cities of Hezekiah's 
kingdom, there is a significant silence respecting the 
capture of Jerusalem itself. It is noteworthy, also, that 
there is no hint in the Assyrian records of Senna- 
cherib's having visited the western land during the 
twenty subsequent years of his reign. Thus, in the 
silences of the Assyrian inscriptions, we find ample 
opportunity for the occurrence of the disasters men- 
tioned by both the sacred and profane historians who 
give us the other side of the story. Sennacherib does 
indeed mention that Hezekiah sent to him large tribute, 
— " thirty talents of gold and eight hundred talents 
of silver, great stores of lapis lazuli, couches of ivory, 
arm chairs of ivory covered with elephants' hide." This, 
too, is corroborative of the sacred account, which in- 
forms us that Hezekiah, in order to appease the Assyr- 
ians for having transferred his allegiance from them to 
Egypt, emptied the treasuries of his temple and the 
king's house, cut off the gold plate of the door posts of 
the temple, and sent thirty talents of gold and three 
hundred talents of silver to buy off Sennacherib. 



58 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

THE TIMES OF AHAB AND JEHU. 

Going back to the middle of the eighth century B.C.., 
we again find, in the sacred records relating to the 
times of Ahab and Jehu, some of our most striking 
undesigned corroborations of their truthfulness. From 
the brief and fragmentary historical statements in the 
book of Kings, we learn that, about the middle of this 
century, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, under the 
lead of Ahab, was engaged in war with the Syrians un- 
der the leadership of Ben-hadad ( i Kings xx. ) in which 
the Syrians were ignominiously defeated in the plain 
near Aphek. Whereupon Ben-hadad, with a rope 
around his neck, appealed to Ahab for mercy, when, 
contrary to what would have been expected, Ben-hadad 
was not only treated mercifully, but generously. There 
was no demand made for the surrender of Damascus 
or for any other serious and humiliating conditions, but 
a treaty was entered into with the Syrians by which 
they became allies of Israel. 

It is significant that shortly after this, at the battle 
of Karkar (854 B.C.), Ahab was found fighting side by 
side with Hadadezer (identical with Ben-hadad) of 
Damascus, and a number of other allies, on the Medi- 
terranean coast, against the Assyrian army under Shal- 
maneser II. In this battle the Assyrians were victorious. 
But the victory was evidently so nearly a drawn battle 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 59 

that the Assyrians did not make much further headway, 
for they advanced only so far as the Orontes River, 
when they turned back, and left the country unmolested 
for several years. Three years after, however, (see 
1 Kings xxii.,) we find Israel again at war with Syria, 
fighting for the possession of Ramoth-Gilead, where 
Ahab was killed. 

In these accounts, when dovetailed together, we find 
a remarkable confirmation of the truthfulness of the 
sacred records in the explanation which is given by 
them of the varying attitudes of Ahab toward the 
Syrian king. As near neighbors struggling for con- 
tiguous territory, Israel and Syria were natural enemies, 
But as Ahab was not totally destitute of discernment, 
and presumably possessed some of the qualities of far- 
seeing statesmanship, he could but see, in the rising 
power of Assyria, and in the movements of Shalmane- 
ser's army towards the west line, the approach of a 
more formidable enemy than the smaller power could 
be whose capital was at Damascus. This most readily 
accounts for the leniency with which he treated Ben- 
hadad, and for the treaty which he made with him, an 
account of which is given in the book of Kings. A 
most natural sequel to this is the appearance of Ahab 
and Ben-hadad together upon the field of Karkar in a 
partially successful attempt to resist the common enemy, 



60 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

who was approaching under the leadership of Shalmane- 
ser; while the temporary success of their resistance, by 
relieving them for a period from the dangers of an 
Assyrian invasion, left Syria and Israel again to be the 
prey of their own petty jealousies, and prepared the 
way for the wars which followed so soon after. Such 
an undesigned adaptation between the accounts of the 
sacred writers and of the Assyrian inscriptions certainly 
gives an air of reality to that of the sacred writers which 
cannot easily be resisted. 

THE BLACK OBELISK OF SHALMANESER II. 

The undesigned coincidences in these records are 
continued in a remarkable manner in the accounts 
which are given of the later expedition in B.C. 842, a 
partial record of which is found on the celebrated black 
obelisk of Shalmaneser II. According to the record on 
the monument, this great Assyrian conqueror in that 
year crossed the Euphrates for the sixteenth time, and 
in the course of his victorious career conquered Hazael 
of Damascus, and pursued him to his royal city, and 
shut him up while he devastated his territory as far as 
the mountains of Hauran on the one side, and to the 
sea at Beirut (Dog River) on the other. But while 
there is no mention of his fighting with the Tyrians, 
Sidonians, and Israelites, it is said that he received 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 6 1 

tribute of them, and " of Jehu the son of Omri." Now, 
as there is no mention in the sacred records of any de- 
feat of Jehu by the Assyrians, nor of the paying of 
tribute by him, it is but the most natural thing that the 
tribute should have been paid under the conditions 
which are implied in the whole biblical account; for, 
in the period subsequent to the battle of Karkar, Da- 
mascus had turned against Israel, so that Israel's most 
natural method of humiliating the Syrian power was 
by making terms with, and paying tribute to, Shal- 
maneser II. 

THE MOABITE STONE. 

One of the most important monumental discoveries 
in giving reality to Old Testament history was that of 
the Moabite stone, which was set up by King Mesha 
(about 850 B.C.) to signalize his deliverance from the 
yoke which Omri, the king of Israel, had imposed upon 
him. The inscription upon this stone was valuable, 
among other things, for its witness to the civilized con- 
dition of the Moabites at that time, and to the close 
similarity of their language to that of the Hebrew. 
From it alone we learn that Omri, king of Israel, was 
compelled by the rebellion of Mesha to resubjugate 
Moab; that, in doing so, he and his son occupied the 
cities of Moab for a period of forty years, but that it 
was restored to the Moabites in the days of Mesha, 



62 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

after a series of battles. Whereupon the cities and 
fortresses retaken were strengthened, and the country 
repopulated, while the methods of warfare were similar 
to those practiced by Israel. On comparing this with 
2 Kings iii. 4-27, we find a parallel account, which 
dovetails in with this in a most remarkable manner, 
though naturally the biblical account treats lightly of 
the reconquest, simply stating that, on account of 
horror created by the idolatrous sacrifices of the king 
of Moab, who offered his eldest son as a sacrifice upon 
the wall before them, they departed from the land and 
returned to their own country. 

THE EXPEDITION OF SHISHAK. 

In the fourteenth chapter of First Kings we have a 
very brief account of an expedition of Shishak, king of 
Egypt, against Jerusalem, in the fifth year of Reho- 
boam. To the humiliation of Judah it is told that he 
succeeded in taking away the treasures of the house of 
Jehovah and of the king's house, among them all the 
shields of gold which Solomon had made; so that 
Rehoboam made shields of brass in their stead. To 
this simple, unadorned account there is given a won- 
derful air of reality when one gazes on the southern 
wall of the court of the temple of Amun at Karnak, 
and beholds the great mass of sculptures and hiero- 



Middle and Later Jewish History. 63 

glyphics which are there inscribed to represent this 
campaign of Shishak. One hundred and fifty-six places 
are enumerated among those which were captured, the 
northernmost being Megiddo. Among these places are 
Gaza, Adullum, Beth-horon, Aijalon, Gibeon, and 
Juda-melech, in which Dr. Birch is probably correct in 
recognizing the sacred city of Jerusalem. 

BREVITY OF THE BOOK OF JUDGES. 

Going back to the book of Judges we reach a 
portion of Israelitish history in which we should 
expect little direct and positive scientific confirma- 
tion of the biblical story, since it is so local in its 
references, and is professedly so fragmentary. In giv- 
ing the history (if a few biographical accounts can be 
called history) of four hundred years, nothing is said 
of more than half of the time, for the reason that it 
was made up of long periods of uneventful peace. 
"And the land had rest " is the sole record for forty 
years under Othniel, eighty years under and after Ehud, 
forty years after Deborah's victory, and forty years un- 
der Gideon. Such periods of peace are unusual in any 
people's history, and betoken the presence of most pow- 
erful conservative influences. That those influences 
proceeded from the law and the priesthood, whose es- 
tablishment is recorded in the Pentateuch, is a most 



64 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

reasonable supposition. The way in which many 
biblical critics have endeavored to reverse the historical 
statements of the Pentateuch by appealing to negative 
evidence drawn from a history professedly so imperfect 
and fragmentary as the book of Judges is, is a travesty 
on the so-called inductive and scientific criticism of the 
Bible. 
Joshua's command to the sun to stand still. 

The passage in Joshua where he is supposed to have 
ordered the sun to stand still, apparently makes such 
enormous demands upon our scientific credulity that it 
should not be passed without a w T ord of explanation. 
Close attention to the language, however, readily re- 
moves the difficulties created by an erroneous popular 
interpretation. 

The passage (Josh. x. 12, 13) is a poetical quota- 
tion interpolated in the prose account given of a victory 
over the Amorites and their confederates at Beth- 
horon. An element which contributed to this victory 
was a fearful storm, in which " they were more which 
died with hailstones than they whom the children of 
Israel slew with the sword " (ver. 11). The following 
four verses form a parenthesis whose central portion 
is a quotation from the poetical book of Jasher, and is 
therefore naturally to be interpreted with a liberality 



Middle and Later Jeivish History. 65 

which that class of literature can justly claim. More- 
over, the passage that makes the difficulty is fairly 
open to a prose translation and interpretation which 
create no difficulty at all. The command " Sun, stand 
thou still upon Gibeon," is rendered in the mar- 
gin of our Authorized Version, " be thou silent," etc. 
(a well-established meaning of the word). In the 
case of the sun this is equivalent to " cease to shine," 
which would be fulfilled in its obscuration during the 
raging storm which followed. In the thirteenth verse 
the proper conclusion of the object of the prayer is that 
the sun should cease shining " until the people had 
avenged themselves upon their enemies." 

In the words of the very learned and orthodox com- 
mentator Keil, — 

" Joshua can scarcely have intended by this to ex- 
press the wish that God would work a miracle by his 
omnipotence, and make the sun and moon stand still ; 
at the most he can only have been anxious that the sun 
and moon should not set till Israel had entirely de- 
feated his enemies. And, therefore, when the poet 
announces in the following words the fulfillment of 
that desire, ' and the sun waited and the moon stood 
still till the people had avenged themselves upon their 
enemies ' (ver. 13) ; he is only saying that God heark- 
ened to Joshua's prayer, and gave the Israelites a com- 
plete victory over their enemies before the setting of the 



66 Middle and Later Jewish History. 

sun and moon, without intending to affirm that the 
sun and moon miraculously stood still." 

" If we had before us simple prose or the words of 
the historian himself, we should without the least hesi- 
tation admit that the day was miraculously lengthened 
in consequence of a delay in the course and setting of 
the sun. But verses 13 and 14 contain merely an am- 
plification or poetical expansion of the words really 
uttered by Joshua in the heat of the conflict : ' Sun, 
wait .... till the people have avenged themselves upon 
their enemies ' ; and we should therefore entirely over- 
look the essential nature of poetry, if we adhered closely 
to the words of the poet, and so understood them to 
mean that the day was miraculously prolonged because 
the sun stood still. In fact it would betray an utter 
inability to enter into the spirit of poetry or of figur- 
ative writing, to continue to regard the words of 
Joshua, ' Sun, wait at Gibeon, and Moon, in the valley 
of Ajalon,' either as a command to the sun and moon, 
or as a prayer that God would cause them to stand 
still." 1X 



Israel in Egypt. 67 



CHAPTER III. 



ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 



With this brief outline of the general confirmation 
of the later portions of the Old Testament, we will 
now proceed to a more specific presentation of a mass 
of recently discovered scientific facts which have a dis- 
tinct bearing upon the truth of a number of the more 
startling statements incorporated into the early part 
of the biblical history. We shall dwell with fullness 
upon these facts, not so much because they are more 
important than others, but because they are in the line 
of studies which I have been pursuing for many years, 
and which lead to results which are as yet but im- 
perfectly known to the general public, but which are 
so distinct a contribution to the discussion that it is 
important to have them presented with such fullness 
that they shall not hereafter be neglected. 

Several of the brief and fragmentary historical state- 
ments which are made in the early part of the Penta- 
teuch involve natural phenomena which so challenge 
scientific investigation that they afford an unusual op- 
portunity for cross-examination. But, as already re- 
marked, it is important to premise that scientific facts 



68 Israel in Egypt. 

can be intelligently stated in every form of literature. 
It is the province of the man of science to discern the 
substratum of fact in the statements of uncultured men. 
Indeed, the plain statements of such are often of highest 
scientific value ; for, by analyzing them, it is usually 
not difficult to determine the so-called " personal equa- 
tion," and arrive at the kernel of truth. At the same 
time it should be remembered that the determination 
of the personal equation of a witness is as important in 
the case of a scientific man as it is in that of an ordi- 
nary observer. The testimony of any one who simply 
reports the impressions made upon his senses, without 
going into an explanation of the phenomena which lie 
beyond his ken, is highly appreciated by scientific men. 
It is important constantly to emphasize the fact that 
all statements, whether in the Bible or out of the Bible, 
demand interpretation. We must first determine what 
it is which has really been said. " The Bible is what 
the Bible means." In statements made with particular 
ends mainly in view, the implications involved must 
be considered in light of well-established rhetorical 
principles. When it is said, for example, that a black 
thunder-cloud overspreads the heavens, it is petty crit- 
icism to call attention to the fact that a cloud never is 
perfectly black. When it is said that the whole country 
is devastated by some calamity, it would be ridiculous 



Israel in Egypt. 69 

to interpret that as a mathematical formula, and to 
challenge the truth of the statement by showing that 
there were certain garden spots that had escaped the 
devastation. So, in describing the plagues of Egypt, 
it is pitiable criticism to find a discrepancy in the state- 
ments which declare, in one place, that the " hail 
smote every herb in the field, and brake every tree of 
the field," while, in a following paragraph, it is 
threatened that the locusts " shall eat the residue of 
that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from 
the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for 
you out of the field." And yet it would be equally 
erroneous to minimize these statements, and interpret 
them as expressing evils of small extent. 

It is necessary to say so much in general, even at the 
risk of some repetition, in order to ward off that carp- 
ing criticism of biblical history which first gives to it 
an interpretation out of character with the style of the 
literature, and then, in rejecting the interpretation, 
asserts that the account itself is to be rejected. We re- 
fuse to recognize the wisdom of interpreters, however 
learned they may be, who put upon common language 
the specific and finical significance of dilettante 
writers. 

In the account of the sojourn of Israel in Egypt, we 
find ourselves peculiarly in the realm of historical 



70 Israel in Egypt. 

reality. It is worthy of notice that the seven-year fam- 
ine of Joseph's time is by no means an isolated event in 
Egyptian history. An inscription on an island near the 
First Cataract, between Assouan and Philae, dating 
probably from the third century B.C., describes a fam- 
ine, which occurred about 3000 B.C., occasioned by 
successive years of low water. 1 These periodical fam- 
ines receive much light, and the record of them becomes 
more easily credible, from a study of the physical con- 
ditions which determine the growth of crops in Egypt. 
The more one investigates the subject, the more he is 
surprised at the delicacy of the balance of physical 
forces which annually determines' the prosperity of the 
Egyptian agriculturist. Mr. Moses Cotsworth has 
published an interesting work upon the pyramids, 2 to 
show that they represent a series of experiments to 
obtain a trustworthy sun-dial from whose shadow the 
exact dates of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes could 
be obtained, and that this object was at last attained in 
the Great Pyramid of Cheops. 

The difficulty and the importance of determining 
these exact points of time each year are not generally 
appreciated. Few realize how much we owe to the 
astronomical observations of the ancients in determin- 
ing the precise length of the year. Since this is 365 
days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds, the point shifts 



Israel in Egypt. 71 

so imperceptibly that long observations must have been 
required to ascertain the exact period. But it was 
especially necessary to determine this in Egypt, in order 
that the crops might be sown at a proper time. For, 
if the rotation of crops each year can be properly ad- 
justed, two crops, and sometimes three, can be secured ; 
while, if a mistake of even a few days is made in the 
time of sowing the first crop, the second one would be 
imperiled, and the third one rendered impossible. Our 
friend suggested that the successive years of plenty and 
famine were occasioned by the skill with which the 
right time for sowing the first crop was determined in 
the years of plenty, and the failure to observe the most 
favorable seedtime in the years of famine. 

From what has been said, it can be easily seen that, 
when population had reached the great density which it 
evidently had in Egypt, where the margin between 
plenty and want was so narrow, a slight mistake in 
astronomical observations might have produced a series 
of disastrous years. Indeed, our friend further sug- 
gested, that he was not sure but that the years of famine 
were produced purposely by Joseph to secure for Pha- 
raoh the nationalization of the land, whereby, as now 
under the strict justice of English rule, the distribution 
of water could be regulated more equitably by the cen- 
tral authorities. And it is evident that, where depend- 



72 Israel in Egypt. 

ence is had upon irrigation, success can be obtained 
only by the strongest form of centralized government. 

But, apart from such considerations, there are cer- 
tain physical elements in the problem which render a 
solution easy without involving human nature in such 
questionable operations. It was long since surmised 
by Sir Robert Murchison, even before the lakes of Cen- 
tral Africa were discovered, that the inundations of 
the Nile indicated that Central Africa was. shaped like 
a great saucer, in which the accumulating waters in 
the rainy season rising a few feet would serve as a 
reservoir to secure the prolonged high-water which was 
necessary for the fertility of Egypt. 

We now know that this is the case. The water of 
the rainy season accumulates rapidly in the great cen- 
tral lakes, but it can pass through the constricted out- 
let only in a limited stream, and if this outlet should be 
liable to obstructions, it might occur that there would 
be a deficiency of outflow for a series of years, followed 
by an unusual abundance for another series of years, 
and then a still greater deficiency for a following 
period. It has long been known that the accumulation 
of vegetable matter technically known as the sudd has 
sometimes collected in the upper part of the Nile to 
such an extent as to obstruct the flow of water for a 
period, and produce great distress in Lower Egypt. It 



Israel in Egypt. 73 

is probable that this was the cause of the extreme low 
water and drought which existed in Egypt from the 
year 1064 a.d. to the year 107 1, when the whole coun- 
try was well-nigh disorganized through the effects of 
the famine. Of this period Edward Stanley Poole 
gives the following vivid account : — 

" The most remarkable famine was that of the 
reign of the Fatimee Khaleefeh, El-Mustansir billah, 
which is the only instance on record of one of seven 
years' duration in Egypt since the time of Joseph (a.d. 
1064— 1071). This famine exceeded in severity all 
others of modern times, and was aggravated by the 
anarchy which then ravaged the country. Vehement 
drought and pestilence (says Es-Suyobtee, in his Hosn 
el Mohddarah; MS.) continued for seven consecutive 
years, so that they [the people] ate corpses, and ani- 
mals that died of themselves ; the cattle perished ; a 
dog was sold for five deenars, and a cat for three 
deenars .... and an ardebb (about five bushels) of 
wheat for one hundred deenars, and then it failed 
altogether. He adds, that all the horses of the Kha- 
leefeh, save three, perished, and gives numerous in- 
stances of the straits to which the wretched inhabitants 
were driven, and of the organised bands of kidnappers 
who infested Cairo and caught passengers in the streets 
by ropes furnished with hooks and let down from the 
houses. This account is confirmed by El-Makreezee 
(in his Khitat), from whom we further learn that the 
family, and even the women of the Khaleefeh fled, by 



74 Israel in Egypt. 

the way of Syria, on foot, to escape the peril that 
threatened all ranks of the population." 3 

Again, in a.d. 1106, as is related by the Arabic his- 
torian Elmacin, there was a period of low water which 
caused great alarm in Egypt. Whereupon 
" the ' Sultan of Egypt ' sent an envoy with magnifi- 
cent presents to the Emperor of Ethiopia, begging him 
to remove the cause of the Nile's failure in that year, 
and so save Egypt from the horrors of famine. The 
Ethiopian monarch was ultimately persuaded ' to suf- 
fer a dam to be opened that had turned the river, 
which, taking its usual course, rose three cubits in one 
day.' The historian records that ' the envoy on his 
return received great honors ' from the relieved Egyp- 
tians." 4 

In the year 1899 considerable alarm was caused by 
the deficiency of water coming down the Nile. In a 
letter to the Tunes, Mr. Willcocks, the eminent Eng- 
lish engineer in charge of the irrigation works in 
Egypt, describes the cause, together with the remedy, 
in the following words : — 

"... The White Nile is completely closed by the 
sudd, and the waters are wandering over the immense 
swamps which stretch from latitude 7 to latitude 10. 
The failure of this supply in the summer of 1900 will 
be serious. Now England holds the keys of the Nile. 
The waters which leave the Great Lakes are considered 
never to fall below 18,000 cubic feet per second (see 



Israel in Egypt. 75 

Sir W. Garstin's last report on the Soudan, published 
by the Egyptian Government). The discharge at As- 
souan, in spite of the additions of surface and subsoil 
waters from the Gazelle, the Sobat, the Blue Nile, and 
the Atbara, has within the last twenty-five years twice 
fallen as low as 7,000 cubic feet per second, and may 
again fall as low, or even lower. What becomes of 
the immense body of water which leaves the lakes? 
After passing Lado, the White Nile splits up into nu- 
merous branches which lose themselves in the swamps. 
'Divide et Impera.' The swamps vanquish the Nile. 
Now if a very small expedition were to find its way to 
Lado via Mombasa, and engage laborers among the 
Bari and Madi tribes, it would be a comparatively 
easy task to close the heads of the Bahr Seraf and other 
channels which leave the right bank and confine the wa- 
ter to the Bahr-el-Jebel, which passes by Bor and Sham- 
beh. (Colonel Martyr says the sudd is thirty miles 
north of Shambeh. If he had had a canal engineer 
with him, he might have cut the sudd and come on 
to Khartum.) Once the waters of the Great Lakes 
were confined to one channel they would be able to 
account for any amount of sudd. No attempt has ever 
been made to cut the sudd with the aid of the current. 
This is the true way to do it, looked at from the point 
of view of the hydraulic engineer. Once the sudd is 
removed, it will be easy, with the aid of a dredger and 
willows, to confine the water permanently to one chan- 
nel, because it is muddv for three months in the year. 



76 Israel in Egypt. 

Willows will have to be imported, as none are to be 
found in the White Nile or the Gazelle river; and 
very possibly it is owing to their absence from these re- 
gions that the swamps have become so unmanage- 
able." 5 



Since this letter of Mr. Willcocks's, Lord Cromer's 
report for the year 1900 on the " Condition of Egypt 
and the Soudan " gives further interesting and signifi- 
cant information. From this it appears that the sur- 
face of Lake Victoria Nyanza had fallen from three 
feet two inches in 1898 to one foot seven inches in 
1900, and that Major Peake was making good progress 
in removing the sudd by cutting it up in large blocks; 
but 

" instead of sudd being, as had been supposed, a tangle 
of weeds floating on the water and descending a few feet 
below the surface, it proved in most cases to be a mass of 
decayed vegetation, papyrus roots, and earth, much re- 
sembling peat in consistency, and compressed into such 
solidity by the force of the current that men could walk 
over it everywhere, and even elephants could, in places, 
cross it without danger. One block in the Bahr-el-jabel, 
one hundred and forty miles south of Lake No, is 
twenty-five miles long. Another fifty-two miles south 
is fifty-three miles long. In both instances the true 
channel of the river is blocked by sudd, and it now fol- 
lows a false channel ; in the formei instance it passes 
through a series of broad shallow lakes.' 1 6 



Israel in Egypt. 77 

In view of these lake reservoirs in Central Africa, 
and of the readiness with which their outlets may be 
temporarily obstructed, successive years of plenty and 
of famine in Egypt no longer seem a mystery. The 
real mystery of the Bible account connected with the 
events of Joseph's career is the supernatural revelation 
made to him, which, being itself a miracle, elevated the 
whole transaction into the realm of the miraculous. It 
is to be noted, however, that the biblical account is 
not compromised by any doubtful references to super- 
natural agency in the production either of the y ears 
of plenty or of famine. We may, therefore, easily im- 
agine the progress of events to have been something as 
follows : — 

The Great Lake Victoria, which forms the principal 
reservoir for the regulation of the flood of the Nile, has 
an area of forty thousand square miles, being about 
twice as large as Lake Huron. A gradual obstruction 
of the outlet which should cause its surface to rise a 
few feet in the course of time, would greatly enlarge 
its surface by flooding the marshy tracts on either side, 
and thus store up an immense amount of water, com- 
pared with which, that to be ponded back by the dam 
which the Egyptian government has built at Assouan 
would be a mere bagatelle. That, to be sure, raises the 
water at Philae sixty feet, and sets it back up the river 






78 Israel in Egypt. 



to a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, but as the 
river is not over a quarter of a mile wide, its total sur- 
face is scarcely over forty square miles, that is, one- 
thousandth part of the surface of the Victoria Lake. 
A rise of two or three feet, therefore, in the great lake 
would store an almost incalculable amount of water. 
To produce the results described in connection with 
the history of Joseph, we may easily suppose that the 
main outlet at length became so clogged with sudd that 
the overflow opened up a fresh channel on one side, 
which, by rapidly enlarging itself, would let down an 
abnormal amount of Water for a series of years, and so 
supply the conditions of successive years of plenty. 
At length these channels became again filled with sudd, 
thus obstructing the water and causing years of famine 
below, until the reservoir had again filled up with 
water and the channel could readjust itself in more 
permanent form. This succession of events is easy 
enough to imagine as taking place in conformity with 
the foreordained conditions existing in the region. In- 
deed, so natural does the succession of events recorded 
now seem, that it is capable of being perceived and 
believed upon as small amount of evidence as that 
which would establish the occurrence of any ordinary 
event. The Nile itself is a wonderful illustration of 
the complicated character of Divine Providence. The 



Israel in Egypt. 79 

revelation of a small section of that wonder to a 
divinely chosen agent, such as Joseph was, in the train- 
ing of the chosen people, is as easy to believe as anything 
else which is supernatural. 

VACILLATIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

The favor with which the children of Israel were 
received in Egypt is rendered altogether credible from 
the fact that it was during the period of the Hyksos, or 
Shepherd Kings, who were themselves conquerors from 
the East, and had their capital, Zoan, between Egypt 
and Canaan. The location of Israel in Goshen is like- 
wise a most natural thing, since it gave them both a 
border-land for the pasture of their flocks and a por- 
tion of the most fertile soil of the Nile Valley for their 
occupation. At the same time that it would strengthen 
the reigning dynasty to have a settlement of such shep- 
herds in Egypt, it was good policy to have their loca- 
tion where they would be least likely to provoke the 
envy of the native Egyptians. 

But the arrival of a new king who knew not Joseph 
points clearly to the change of dynasty, by which the 
Hyksos were expelled from Egypt. The native dynasty 
which came into power, would naturally become the 
oppressors of Israel. The description of this oppres- 
sion, given in such dramatic language in the book of 



80 Israel in Egypt. 

Exodus, is illustrated in the most lifelike manner by 
the recent discoveries at Pithom and Rameses. 

" Exodus i. 8 Now there arose a new king over 
Egypt, who knew not Joseph. 9 And he said unto his 
people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are 
more and mightier than we: 10 come, let us deal wisely 
with them ; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, 
when there falleth out any war, they also join them- 
selves unto our enemies, and fight against us, and get 
them up out of the land. 1 1 Therefore they did set over 
them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. 
And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and 

Rameses 13 And the Egyptians made the children 

of Israel to serve with rigor: 14 and they made their 
lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, 
and in all manner of service in the field, all their ser- 
vice wherein they made them serve with rigor." 

" V. 6 And the same day Pharaoh commanded the 
taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying, 
7 Ye shall no more give the people straw to make 
brick, as heretofore: let them go and gather straw for 
themselves. 8 And the number of the bricks, which 
they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them: ye 
shall not diminish aught thereof: for they are idle; 
therefore they cry, saying, Let us go and sacrifice to 
our God. 9 Let heavier work be laid upon the men, 
that they may labor therein ; and let them not regard 
lying words. 

"10 And the taskmasters of the people went out, 



Israel in Egypt. 8 1 

and their officers, and they spake to the people, saying, 
Thus saith Pharaoh, I will not give you straw, n Go 
yourselves, get you straw where ye can find it: for 
nought of your work shall be diminished. 12 So the 
people were scattered abroad throughout all the land 
of Egypt to gather stubble for straw. 13 And the 
taskmasters were urgent, saying, Fulfill your works, 
your daily tasks, as when there was straw. 14 And 
the officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh's 
taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and de- 
manded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task 
both yesterday and to-day, in making brick as hereto- 
fore? 

"15 Then the officers of the children of Israel 
came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore deal- 
est thou thus with thy servants ? 1 6 There is no straw 
given unto thy servants, and they say to us, Make 
brick; and, behold, thy servants are beaten; but the 
fault is in thy own people. 17 But he said, Ye are 
idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, Let us go and sacri- 
fice to Jehovah. 18 Go therefore now, and work; for 
there shall no straw be given you, yet shall ye deliver 
the number of bricks. 19 And the officers of the chil- 
dren of Israel did see that they were in evil case, 
when it was said, Ye shall not diminish aught from 
your bricks, your daily tasks." 

All this reads like a genuine excerpt from the 
straightforward record of an eye-witness. It is a cir- 
cumstance of the utmost historical interest that in this 



82 Israel in Egypt. 

very locality there have been found storehouses, of that 
same age, conforming in every particular to this de- 
scription. In 1883 Edouard Naville unearthed numer- 
ous such storepits at Tel el-Maskhuta, on the border 
of Goshen, along the line of the old Fresh-water Canal 
leading from the delta of the Nile to the Gulf of 
Suez. 7 The place was more definitely located by 
inscriptions as Pi-Tum, " the abode of Turn," cor- 
responding to Pithom, and Thuket, corresponding to 
Succoth, built by Rameses II. The place was further 
identified with Heroopolis, or Ero, of classical times; 
these names designating them as containing storehouses. 
Here Naville excavated numerous strongly built 
treasure-chambers, separated by brick partitions from 
eight to ten feet thick. The storehouses occupied al- 
most the whole extent of Pithom, with the walls, which 
were six hundred and fifty feet square, and twenty-two 
feet thick. In the walls of the storehouses could be 
seen the several courses of sun-baked brick, some made 
with straw and some without straw. Such a newly 
discovered conformity between the Bible account and 
the conditions surrounding these cities stamps the his- 
tory as genuine. The story has not been tampered 
with by later redactors. 



The Exodus. 83 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE EXODUS. 

We have in the Pentateuch the records of four start- 
ling events which are peculiarly open to scientific cross- 
examination. They are : ( 1 ) the passage of the Red 
Sea; (2) the parting of the Jordan; (3) the destruc- 
tion of Sodom and Gomorrah; and (4) the Noachian 
deluge. These we will now test by comparing them 
with the physical conditions brought to light by recent 
investigations, enabling us to determine the extent to 
which the accounts have been vitiated, if at all, by 
the imagination of reporters or copyists. We shall 
attempt to show that these accounts are of such a 
striking character, and are so connected with the oper- 
ation of profound, and until recently unknown, laws 
of nature, that the imagination of later times could not 
have been allowed to modify them without introducing 
incongruous and impossible elements. If it shall be 
found that the statements correspond to the phenomena 
which, according to modern scientific investigation, 
were natural to the places and the occasions, we shall 
have the strongest possible confirmation that they are 
the reports of eye-witnesses which have been trans- 
mitted to us without modification. 



84 The Exodus. 

It is not, however, the part of science directly to 
prove the truth of these fragmentary bits of history; 
they are to be believed primarily on the evidence of 
the documents themselves. All that science can say 
concerning these events relates merely to the inherent 
probability of such occurrences. A scientific exami- 
nation of the physical conditions involved in the state- 
ments will be of service merely in the removal of 
objections which may be raised by reason of our ignor- 
ance of those conditions. If it can be shown that these 
statements of startling facts do not make extravagant 
demands upon our beliefs concerning the uniformity of 
the course of nature, but that they are in close analogy 
with the operation of her widely known laws, we shall 
have gained a great point in establishing the credibility 
of the narratives. 

Just here a word more should be said about the 
miraculous character of these events; and, to do this, it 
will be necessary to get clearly before our minds what 
a miracle really is, and what are its relations to the 
course of nature. 

The best definition of nature is that which conceives 
of it simply as the system of causally connected se- 
quences of the universe. Thus conceived, the free wills 
both of man and of the Creator are forces' outside of 
nature having the mysterious power of piercing the 



The Exodus. 85 

joints of this harness of causally connected sequences, 
and modifying the results according to an intelligent 
purpose. Man by his volition brings about new and 
unexplainable combinations of natural forces. To a 
limited extent he changes the face of nature. He forms 
combinations that are new, and produces results which 
are extranatural. Nature herself would never produce 
a house, or build a railroad, or develop domestic plants 
and animals. 1 

There is no more philosophical difficulty in conceiv- 
ing of God's working a miracle than there is in conceiv- 
ing of man as producing an extranatural effect through 
his control and combinations of natural forces. The 
difference between a miracle and the accomplishment of 
man's free will lies chiefly in the magnitude of the 
events and the extent of the control which is mani- 
fested. Man is limited in his control of nature. He 
can leap a few feet into the air. But even this is not 
a natural exhibition of power. Mere natural forces 
would forever hold him to the ground. It is through 
an extranatural combination of forces that man's will 
instigates and secures this result. But, however much 
he may will it, he has not the power, in the present 
order of things, to leap into the air more than a few 
feet. He has not such control of forces that he could 
leap to the moon, even with the help of an air-ship. 



86 The Exodus. 

With God, however, there is no such limitation of 
power. He has power to bring about results which are 
superhuman as well as supernatural. And while we 
may not know the exact limit of man's power, so as 
strictly to define the sphere of the superhuman, and 
determine the boundary beyond which the modifica- 
tions of nature would necessitate divine control, and 
so be strictly called miraculous, we have no practical 
difficulty in setting off by themselves the most of the 
facts which are miraculous. 

We have no hesitation in specifying as miraculous 
such facts, for example, as the ascension and the resur- 
rection of Christ, the raising of Lazarus, the multipli- 
cation of the loaves and fishes, the stilling of the tempest 
upon the sea, and the changing of the water into wine. 
Nor should we question in the Old Testament the 
strictly miraculous character of the preservation of 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in the fiery fur- 
nace, of the translation of Elijah, of the descent of the 
fire upon Mount Carmel to burn the sacrifices which 
had been laid upon the altar, and of many other in- 
stances which it is not necessary to name. In all these 
the facts may have been accomplished through the 
action of the Divine Will in making new combinations 
of the causally connected sequences which we have 
given as the definition of nature. Still, we have no 



The Exodus. 87 

clue, and probably can never have any clue, to the 
channels through which the Divine Will has operated. 
But the class of facts which we now proceed to con- 
sider belongs to what have been called " mediate mira- 
cles." In these we are permitted to see the forces which 
have been used, and to judge of them by analogy, 
comparing them with things with which we are more 
or less familiar. 

PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 

One of the best opportunities for thus testing the 
truthfulness of an extraordinary historical statement 
is found in the account of the crossing of the Red Sea 
by the children of Israel. The story is remarkable in 
every respect, and not the least in the way it puts forth 
the secondary causes through which the way was 
opened for the deliverance of the people. In a litera- 
ture written for religious purposes, in which it was 
both natural and proper to throw into the foreground 
the direct agency of God, it is surprising that so much 
emphasis is laid upon the means employed by the Crea- 
tor. It was indeed the Lord who " caused the sea to 
go back." But he did it " by a strong east wind, 
which blew all night," and " made the sea dry land." 
And again, in the song which recounts the event, it 
was by the " blast of his nostrils " that the waters were 



88 The Exodus. 

piled up. And when the waters came back to over- 
whelm the Egyptians it was God who " did blow with 
his wind that the sea should cover them." 
The whole exquisite passage is as follows: — 

" Exodus xii. 37 And the children of Israel jour- 
neyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred 
thousand on foot that were men, besides children. 
38 And a mixed multitude went up also with them; 
and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle. . . . xiii. 
20 And they took their journey from Succoth, and 
encamped in Etham, in the edge of the wilderness. . . . 
xiv. I And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, 2 Speak 
unto the children of Israel, that they turn back and 
encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the 
sea, before Baal-zephon : over against it shall ye en- 
camp by the sea. 3 And Pharaoh will say of the chil- 
dren of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the 
wilderness hath shut them in. 4 And I will harden 
Pharaoh's heart, and he shall follow after them; and 
I will get me honor upon Pharaoh, and upon all his 
host; and the Egyptians shall know that I am Jehovah. 
And they did so. 5 And it was told the king of Egypt 
that the people were fled : and the heart of Pharaoh and 
of his servants was changed towards the people, and 
they said, What is this we have done, that we have 
let Israel go from serving us? 6 And he made ready 
his chariot, and took his people with him: 7 and he 
took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots 
of Egypt, and captains over all of them. 8 And Jeho- 



The Exodus. 89 

vah hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and 
he pursued after the children of Israel: for the children 
of Israel went out with a high hand. 9 And the 
Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and char- 
iots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and 
overtook them encamping by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, 
before Baal-zephon. 

" 10 And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of 
Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians 
were marching after them; and they were sore afraid: 
and the children of Israel cried out unto Jehovah. . . . 
13 And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, 
stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah, which he 
will work for you to-day: for the Egyptians whom ye 
have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for 
ever. 14 Jehovah will fight for you, and ye shail 
hold your peace. 

" 15 And Jehovah said unto Moses, Wherefore 
criest thou unto me? Speak unto the children of Israel, 
that they go forward. 16 And lift thou up thy rod, 
and stretch out thy hand over the sea, and divide it: 
and the children of Israel shall go into the midst of 
the sea on dry ground. . . . 

" 21 And Moses stretched out his hand over the 
sea ; and Jehovah caused the sea to go back by a strong 
east wind all the night, and made the sea dry land, and 
the waters were divided. 22 And the children of 
Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry 
ground : and the waters were a wall unto them on their 



90 The Exodus. 

right hand, and on their left. 23 And the Egyptians 
pursued, and went in after them into the midst of the 
sea, all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horse- 
men. 24 And it came to pass in the morning watch, 
that Jehovah looked forth upon the host of the Egyp- 
tians through the pillar of fire and of cloud, and discom- 
fited the host of the Egyptians. 25 And he took off 
their chariot wheels, and they drove them heavily; so 
that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of 
Israel; for Jehovah fighteth for them against the 
Egyptians. 

" 26 And Jehovah said unto Moses, Stretch out thy 
hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon 
the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their 
horsemen. 27 And Moses stretched forth his hand 
over the sea, and the sea returned to its strength when 
the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against 
it ; and Jehovah overthrew the Egyptians in the midst 
of the sea. 28 And the waters returned, and covered the 
chariots, and the horsemen, even all the host of Pha- 
raoh that went in after them into the sea; there re- 
mained not so much as one of them. 29 But the chil- 
dren of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of 
the sea ; and the waters were a wall unto them on their 
right hand, and on their left. 30 Thus Jehovah saved 
Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and 
Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. 
31 And Israel saw the great work which Jehovah did 
upon the Egyptians, and the people feared Jehovah; 
and they believed in Jehovah, and in his servant Moses. 



The Exodus. 91 

" XV. 1 Then sang Moses and the children of 
Israel this song unto Jehovah, and spake, saying, 
" I will sing unto Jehovah, for he hath triumphed 
gloriously : 
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the 
sea. 

2 Jehovah is my strength and song, 
And he is become my salvation : 

This is my God, and I will praise him; 
My father's God, and I will exalt him. 

3 Jehovah is a man of war : 
Jehovah is his name. 

4 Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath he cast ir.to 

the sea; 
And his chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea. 

5 The deeps cover them: 

They went down into the depths like a stone. 

6 Thy right hand, O Jehovah, is glorious in power, 
Thy right hand, O Jehovah, dasheth in pieces 

the enemy. 

7 And in the greatness of thine excellency, thou 

overthrowest them that rise up against 
thee: 
Thou sendest forth thy wrath, it consumeth them 
as stubble. 

8 And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters wtre 

piled up. 
The floods stood upright as a heap 
The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea. 

9 The enemy said, 



92 The Exodus. 

I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the 

spoil ; 
My desire shall be satisfied upon them ; 
I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy 

them ; 

10 Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered 

them: 
They sank as lead in the mighty waters. 

1 1 Who is like unto thee, O Jehovah, among the 

gods? 
Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, 
Fearful in praises, doing wonders? 

12 Thou stretchest out thy right hand, 
The earth swallowed them. 

13 Thou in thy loving kindness hath led the people 

that thou hast redeemed : 
Thou hast guided them in thy strength to thy 
holy habitation. 

14 The peoples have heard, they tremble: 

Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Phi- 
listia. 

15 Then were the chiefs of Edom dismayed; 

The mighty men of Moab, trembling taketh hold 

upon them : 
All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away. 

16 Terror and dread falleth upon them; 

By the greatness of thine arm they are as still as 

a stone; 
Till thy people pass over, O Jehovah, 
Till thy people pass over that thou hast purchased. 



The Exodus. 93 

17 Thou wilt bring them in, and plant them in the 

mountain of thine inheritance, 
The place, O Jehovah, which thou hast made for 

thee to dwell in, 
The sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have 

established. 

18 Jehovah shall reign forever and ever. 

"19 For the horses of Pharaoh went in with his 
;hariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and Jeho- 
vah brought back the waters of the sea upon them ; but 
the children of Israel walked on dry land in the midst 
of the sea. 20 And Miriam the prophetess, the sister 
of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the wo- 
men went out after her with timbrels and with dances. 
21 And Miriam answered them, 

" Sing ye to Jehovah, for he hath triumphed glor- 
iously ; 
The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the 
sea." 

In much of the popular comment upon this account 
of the sacred writer, intervention of secondary agencies 
has not been properly noticed. But, clearly, we are 
not at liberty to interpret it without giving due weight 
to the repeated mention of the secondary causes said 
to be employed by the Creator in the production of the 
phenomena. The Lord opened the sea before the chil- 
dren of Israel, but he used the wind as his instrument. 
This is expressly and repeatedly said. But, on the 



94 The Exodus. 

principle that whatever a person does through an in- 
strument he does himself, this work is none the less the 
Lord's than if he had done it directly, without any 
intervening secondary cause. Such reference to the 
secondary agency by which the event was brought 
about invites us to an examination of the physical con- 
ditions in which such a cause would produce the given 
result. In the plainest manner, therefore, it opens itself 
up to scientific inquiry. 

Physical Conditions North of Suez. — The Gulf of 
Suez ends in a narrow point of shallow water, extend- 
ing a few miles north of the city. The junction of 
this inlet with the main gulf is partially obstructed by 
a narrow bar, which is almost out of the water at cer- 
tain stages of what may be called the tide, — though it 
is not a real tide which affects the depth of the water, 
but, as is now well known, the wind. It was the sur- 
mise of Dr. Edward Robinson, who has been followed 
by many others, that the place of the crossing was at 
Suez, and that this bar was the bridge by which it 
was effected at low water. But the bar is so narrow 
that it would be more of a miracle to get the host of 
Israel across in the time allotted than it would be to 
disperse the waters which submerge it. 

More careful study of the situation, and the increas- 
ing light shed upon it by geological investigations, have 



The Exodus. 95 

tended to shift the scene a few miles farther northward, 
where conditions are found which comport equally well 
with the position into which the Israelites were brought 
by their three-days' march, and at the same time reveal 
other conditions perfectly fitted to account for the 
whole transaction. 

The shallow inlet projecting northward from Suez 
really occupies the lower part of a narrow depression, 
or we may call it channel (several miles of which are 
now dry), extending through to the Bitter Lakes, and 
thence on up to Lake Timsah, on which is the present 
city of Ismailia, which probably occupies the site of 
the Etham of biblical times. The Suez Canal has taken 
advantage of this prolonged depression, and been able, 
by a shallow open cut through rock, which is at the 
highest point (near Chaloof) twenty-seven feet above 
sea-level, to connect the Gulf of Suez with the largest 
of the Bitter Lakes. Following this lake to its north- 
ern end, another cut through land, which is at Serapeum 
thirty feet above sea-level, brings it to Ismailia, upon 
the northern end of Lake Timsah. Just north of this 
point occurs the deepest cut for the canal through a 
land surface, which is from seventy to eighty feet above 
sea-level, and has been the passageway between Africa 
and Asia used by caravans and armies for thousands of 
years. Soon after leaving this last cut, the canal 



The Exodus. 97 

reaches the shallows of Lake Menzaleh, which stretch 
on the east to Pelusium, and a little beyond merge into 
the famous Serbonian Bog. 

It thus appears that a subsidence of the land to the 
extent of a little more than thirty feet would cause the 
water of the Gulf of Suez to extend to Ismailia, and 
still leave the old land passage between Asia and Africa 
forty or fifty feet above sea-level, and would cover the 
highest places at Serapeum and Chaloof to a depth of 
only a few feet. 

That there was such a depression in recent times is 
clear from both direct and indirect evidence. During 
the present geological epoch the whole region around 
the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea has risen 
about two hundred and fifty feet. Indubitable evi- 
dence of this may be seen near the summit of the iso- 
lated eroded cliff known' to the Arabs as Het el-Orab, 
or the Crow's Nest, about half a mile south of the 
pyramids at Gizeh, which is about the same level with 
the pyramid plateau, approximately two hundred feet 
above the sea. Here there is a clearly defined recent 
sea-beach, composed of well-worn pebbles, from an 
inch or two to a foot in diameter, the interstices of 
which are filled with small oyster-shells, loosely cement- 
ed together. A collection which the writer personally 
made of these shells, submitted to Dr. F. L. Kitchin, 



The Exodus. 




General View of the Crow's Nest, from the Pyramids. 

of the British Geological Survey, were pronounced to 
be indistinguishable from Alectryonia cucullata, Born, 
a variable form which occurs in Pliocene deposits and 
also lives at the present day in the Red Sea. This sea- 
beach was first discovered by Dr. Oscar Fraas, and has- 
been described by Schweinfurth and Dawson. These 
observers noticed, also, that the face of the plateau had 
been pierced by lithodomus mollusks (Pholades rugosa, 
Broc.) and reported shells of Ostrea undata, Goldf., 
and Pecten Dunkri, May. 

Another locality where similar evidence occurs is at 
the base of the Mokattam Hills, upon the opposite side 



The Exodus. 



99 




Near View of the Raised Beach on the Crow's Nest. 



of the Nile from the pyramids. Concerning this, Pro- 
fessor Edward Hull, in his " Memoir on the Geology 
and Geography of Arabia Petraea, Palestine, and Ad- 
joining Districts," says: — 

" It was first recognized by Fraas, and more recently 
examined by Schweinfurth, who pointed out the traces 
of the ancient shore-line to the author on the occasion 
of our visit to Cairo in November, 1883. On ascend- 
ing the Mokattam Hills towards Gebel el Ahmar, we 



ioo The Exodus. 

pass over a tract of undulating ground, and reach the 
line of the railway from Abbasieh, and here it is said 
that our observations commence. We discover, from 
certain openings, that the ground is formed of beds of 
purple and yellow sand and fine gravel, a little marl 
and clay, with specimens and fragments of Terebratula 
(T. forscata), Ostrea (O. cucullata, Born), Pecten, 
and Balanus — shells or species of which do not occur 
in the Eocene limestone formation. On crossing the 
railway and ascending towards the limestone cliffs, we 
observe that the rock is penetrated by numerous borings 
of Teredo, though the shell is seldom left in the per- 
foration. We are here evidently standing on the 
ancient sea-margin, and at an elevation of two hundred 
and twenty feet above the Mediterranean and Red Seas. 
The presence of the beach has been detected in other 
places along the hills by Dr. Schweinfurth, and the 
Teredo borings have also been observed by him in the 
limestone platform on which is built the Mosque of 
Mehemet Ali " (p. 71 ). 2 

Near Jaffa there is another typical deposit of the 
same period, described by Hull as follows: — 

" The raised sea-bed stretches far inland from Jaffa, 
and is noticed by Lartet. It may be traced along the 
Jerusalem road to beyond Ramleh and Lydda (Ludd). 
At Jaffa the shelly sands rest on the more ancient sand- 
stone which forms the foundation of the city, and sup- 
plies the copious springs of water necessary for the 
irrigation of the extensive orange and lemon groves 



The Exodus. 101 

which are so justly celebrated for their abundant and 
excellent quality ; but farther inland about Ramleh, 
this fine sand and gravel gives place to beds of calca- 
reous conglomerate, formed of limestone pebbles of all 
size, and well water-worn. This is undoubtedly an 
ancient sea-beach, which appears to rise to a level of 
considerably over two hundred feet, formed at a time 
when the waters of the sea extended over twelve miles 
beyond their present limits. In these beds M. Lartet 
has noticed the following species : Pectunculus violas- 
cenSj Lamk. ; Purpura hemastoma, Lamk., Murex 
brandaris, Linn., Columbella rustlca, Lamk., etc. By 
far the most abundant shell is that first named, and it 
is still the most abundant on the adjoining Mediter- 
ranean shore" (pp. 74-75). 

Still another locality where the evidence is beyond 
question is at Lattakia, about thirty miles north of 
Beirut. According to the description of Rev. George 
Post, M.D.j Professor in the American College at 
Beirut, Syria, — ■ 

" Beds of sea-shells and corals now living in the Medi- 
terranean occur at elevations chiefly between one hun- 
dred and fifty and two hundred and fifty feet above 
the sea ; but they are also found more sparingly at even 
higher levels. The principal locality where these shells 
have been observed is in a valley near the village of 
Qutrujeh, in a mass of unsolidified clay, which is ex- 
tremelv full both of shells and corals." 3 



The Exodus. 




Map showing, in the shaded portion, the effect in Lower 
Egypt of a continental depression of 300 feet. The enlarge- 
ment of the Dead Sea was an indirect result. See pages 313 
and 314. 

Similar accumulations of recent shells are, according 
to Hull, found upon the island of Cyprus, on 
" the broad terrace which stretches along Larnika Bay, 
bounded inland by a line of white limestone cliffs. 



The Exodus. 103 

This terrace is also an old sea-bed, and the cliffs formed 
the coast-line which was washed by the waves at a 
time when the land was submerged. These raised sea- 
beds have been described by Mr, R. Russell, who 
recognizes in them shells of species now living in the 
adjoining waters of the Mediterranean" (p. 76). 

Thus, as Professor Hull remarks, — 

" it will be seen that all along the coast of the Levant, 
from Egypt, by Palestine, Syria, and extending to the 
Island of Cyprus, there are indications that a period, 
so recent that the shells and corals are still living, the 
land has been submerged to a depth of from two hun- 
dred and twenty to two hundred and fifty feet. Dur- 
ing this period Africa was an island, and the waters 
of the Mediterranean stretched southwards into the 
Red Sea" (p. 76). 

Evidence of this depression is also seen in the fact 
that the isthmus between Suez and the Bitter Lakes 
is covered with recent deposits of Nile mud, holding 
modern Red-Sea shells, showing that, at no very dis- 
tant date, there was an overflow of the Nile through 
an eastern branch into this slightly depressed level. 
The line of this branch of the Nile overflow was in 
early times used for a canal, which has recently been 
reopened to furnish fresh water to Suez, and the de- 
pression is followed by the railroad. 4 

It is now more than three thousand vears since the 



104 The Exodus. 

date of the Exodus; so that the results required for the 
explanation of our problem would be produced by a 




Conglomerate Knob in Desert North of Suez. 
This characteristic knob, left by ancient erosion of the plain 
in front of Jebel Geneffeh, is only about 200 feet above the 
plain. It was impossible to get photographs of Jebel Genef- 
feh which would be worthy of reproduction. This one was 
taken from the plain where we supposed the children of Israel 
encamped (see photograph on page 109), looking northwest- 
ward, in which direction the precipitous front of Jebel Genef- 
feh, with Migdol between it and the Bitter Lakes, both rising 
from 1,000 to 1,500 feet above the sea, were in the background, 
while to the southwest Jebel Attaka closed in the view in 
that direction. 



The Exodus. 105 

rate of change in level with which geologists are per- 
fectly familiar. Indeed, the best-informed members of 
our United States Geological Survey maintain that 
the changes of level about our Great Lakes of North 
America are such that in three thousand years a part 
of the water which is now pouring over Niagara will 
be diverted, by a natural flow, into the Mississippi Val- 
ley. 5 To the geologist, therefore, the supposition which 
we are making is of the most commonplace and reason- 
able order. It is such a supposition as geologists are 
constantly and confidently making for the solution of 
the most insignificant problems which are presented to 
them. How much more is it legitimate to use it in 
explanation of historical statements so strongly cred- 
ited as are these in the book of Exodus! 

Now, the supposed depression of thirty or thirty- 
five feet, existing, three thousand years ago, over the 
eastern border of the Mediterranean Sea, would cause 
the water of the Red Sea to extend northward through 
the narrow valley which, from the point of view of 
physical geography, is a continuation of the Gulf of 
Suez; so that there would be a continuous line of un- 
fordable water as far north as Etham. But, for a 
distance of ten or twelve miles between Suez and the 
Bitter Lakes, the average depth of the water would be 
about five feet, a depth which could be easily reduced 



106 The Exodus. 

to nothing by the strong east wind spoken of in the 
biblical account. 

Effect of Wind upon Water-Levels. — The facts 
about the effect of wind upon water-levels have al- 
ways been more or less known, but recent observations 
place them now in a clearer light than they have ever 
been seen before. 6 Among the most conclusive and 
satisfactory sets of observations upon this point are 
those which have been made by the officers of the 
United States Coast Survey upon the effect of wind 
upon water-levels in Lake Erie. This lake is about 
two hundred and fifty miles long, and its axis, run- 
ning nearly northeast by southwest, is in line with that 
of the prevailing storms of the region. Now, it re- 
peatedly occurs that a strong wind from the southwest 
lowers the water at Toledo, Ohio, which lies at the 
western end of the lake, to the extent of seven or eight 
feet, while it piles it up to the same extent at Buffalo, 
New York, which lies at the eastern end. A shifting 
of the wind from southwest to northeast produces 
the opposite effect, lowering the water at Buffalo and 
piling it up at Toledo, thus making, oftentimes within 
a short period, a difference of between fourteen and 
fifteen feet in the depth of the water of these two 
ports. 

Major-General Tulloch, 7 of the British army, re- 



The Exodus. 107 

ported that while assigned to duty on the Isthmus of 
Suez he witnessed the driving-off of the water from 
the eastern end of Lake Menzaleh by the wind to 
such an extent as to lower the level six feet. Accord- 
ing to the map of the Suez Canal Company, the dif- 
ference between the highest and the lowest water-level 
at Suez is ten feet and seven inches, which, since there 
is no tide in the Red Sea, must be due to the effect of 
the winds. 

It would take far less than a tornado to lower the 
water at the northern end of the Red Sea sufficiently 
to lay bare the shallow channel which we have supposed 
to have connected the Gulf of Suez with the Bitter 
Lakes, permitting any number of an organized host to 
cross to the other side. The advantage of this theory 
respecting the place of crossing, over that of Dr. Robin- 
son, is that the gap is here so broad that the numbers 
mentioned in Exodus could be easily taken across in a 
few hours, since the distance would be no more than 
two or three miles, and the channel could be crossed 
anywhere along a line ten miles in length. s 

Turning again to the biblical account, we find that 
everything readily fits into this situation. At that time, 
the court of the Pharaohs was held at Zoan, about 
thirty miles northwest of Etham, and about the same 
distance northeast of Rameses, the point from which the 



108 The Exodus. 

children of Israel set out upon their eventful journey. 
As their course from Rameses was eastward along the 
line of the Fresh-water Canal, and their first camping- 
place, Succoth, a distance of from ten to fifteen miles, 
their next camping-place was Etham, which, as already 
remarked, was probably near the present Ismailia, at 
the head of what was then the northern projection of 
the Gulf of Suez. 

The Place of the Crossing. — So far they had not got 
beyond the reach of a flank movement by Pharaoh's 
army, that might cut across the desert and readily in- 
tercept them on the main road to Palestine. But at this 
point there was a most remarkable and apparently fool- 
ish and suicidal diversion of the Israelites from their 
onward course. Leaving the regular road to the Prom- 
ised Land, they were, by divine direction, turned south- 
ward, and reached a camp which is described as " bqfore 
Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, before Baal- 
zephon." The exact locality of this camp cannot be 
determined, but every condition suits the description a 
little over a day's march south of Ismailia, on the west 
side of the Bitter Lakes. Here there is a mountain 
prominence, admirably conforming to the signification 
of the word " Migdol," upon the west, which sepa- 
rates a narrow, level margin along the Bitter Lakes 
from the wilderness, which stretches westward to 



The Exodus. 



109 




View of Jebel Attaka, from the- Vicinity of Pi-hahiroth. 

This view shows the plain on which the children of Israel 
probably encamped the day previous to the crossing at Cha- 
loof. (See map on page 96.) The vegetation in the imme- 
diate foreground springs up from the vicinity of the Fresh- 
water Canal, which is immediately in the rear. This plain 
is covered witk sand and gravel utterly devoid of vegetation, 
but showing marks of floods, produced by occasional cloud- 
bursts, which have gradually washed the material down the 
gentle slope from the mountains in the background to the 
axis of depression occupied by the canal. In the vicinity of 
this axis of depression recent shells are found, while they are 
reported upon the flanks of Jebel Attaka up to an elevation of 
200 or 300 feet. From this point one has an excellent view of a 
picturesque mountain range upon the east, the northern por- 
tion of which may well correspond to Baal Zephon. 



no The Exodus. 

Cairo. There is also a mountain clearly visible east of 
the lakes which may well mark the site of Baal-zephon. 
So clear is the atmosphere, and so short are the dis- 
tances, in that region, that one traveling along the line 
of the railroad from Rameses to Etham can distinctly 
see both this tower-like projection of Jebel Geneffeh, 
about fifteen miles away, and the peak of Jebel Attaka, 
rising to a height of several thousand feet, just back 
of Suez, fifteen or twenty miles farther. No descrip- 
tion could better fit the conditions than that which is 
put, by the sacred writer, into the mouth of Pharaoh : 
" They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath 
shut them in." From a military point of view, no 
move could have been more foolhardy than that of the 
children of Israel in marching southward between the 
perpendicular face of the monoclinal ridge of Jebel 
Geneffeh, on the west, and the projecting arm of the 
Red Sea, upon the east. From such a pocket, escape 
could be nothing less than miraculous. There was 
only this advantage, that they were temporarily pro- 
tected from attack upon either flank, while their rear 
guard was compelled to defend only a narrow field. 

The judgment of Pharaoh that the children of Israel 
were entangled in the land, that the wilderness had 
shut them in, strongly supports our theory that at that 
time the Gulf of Suez extended up to the Bitter Lakes; 



The Exodus. 1 1 1 

for, how else could it have shut them in, except that 
there was water to the east of them a single day's jour- 
ney from Etham? 

Sir J. W. Dawson ° and others would place the 
fourth encampment of the children of Israel some dis- 
tance north of the present southerly extension of the 
larger of the Bitter Lakes. But this is by no means 
necessary, and does not fit the situation so well as does 
the locality a few miles farther south, opposite what is 
now the dry portion of the old arm of the gulf, 
which was, as we have supposed, then covered with 
shallow water. In making this supposition, no vio- 
lence is done to the text of scripture or to the necessities 
of the case. A vast army like the hosts of Israel at that 
time cannot encamp in one particular point, but are 
necessarily spread over a considerable territory. And 
we are not shut off from supposing that, in the adjust- 
ment of their camp, they had time to move to the more 
commodious and open plain that lies about half way 
between the Bitter Lakes and Suez. 

We are bound to state, however, that Naville, Ebers, 
Poole, De Lesseps, and some others, while in general 
iavoring the views here presented, would place the 
crossing at Serapeum, between the great Bitter Lake 
and Lake Timsah. And it must be confessed that nearly 
all the arguments in favor of Chaloof would apply to 



ii2 The Exodus. 

that locality. But the distance from Etham and the 
position of Mount Geneffeh favor Chaloof. The main 
arguments of this chapter, however, would apply to 
either locality. 

Supposing the children of Israel to be in this position, 
with Jebel Geneffeh on the west, Jebel Attaka and the 
Gulf of Suez on the south, the shallow projecting arm 
of Suez separating them from the -wilderness, on the 
east, and pressed, on the rear, by the advance guard of 
Pharaoh's arm} 7 , the situation would seem to be desper- 
ate. It was not within the reach of the human mind, at 
that time, nor would it be at the present time, to calcu- 
late upon the deliverance which came. Not only were 
the forces of nature which were employed to effect it be- 
yond the power of human control, but their action was 
beyond reach of human foresight. It was, however, 
revealed to Moses that the waters should recede, and a 
way of escape be opened ; and we are told that " Jeho- 
vah caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all 
the night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters 
were divided." 

We have already given in detail the effect of a 
strong wind in lowering the level of the narrow body 
of water over which it blows. No situation better 
adapted for the full effect of winds, in producing a 
change of water-level, could be imagined than was 



The Exodus. 113 

found here. Even should we feel compelled to inter- 
pret strictly the word " east," the contour of the shore is 
such that the resultant of the forces would be to move 
the whole body of water from the head of the gulf into 
the broader and deeper portions to the south, thus lay- 
ing bare a broad isthmus over which an immense or- 
ganized host could pass in a few hours' marching. 

A Mediate Miracle. — In analyzing the miracle, 
we need not trouble ourselves with the task of deter- 
mining the exact point at which the immediate agency 
of God enters into the chain of natural causes to direct 
their action to the accomplishment of this specific pur- 
pose. Some would prefer to think of this physical phe- 
nomenon as foreordained from eternity, the causes 
which would lead to it having been incorporated into 
the original creation. But even then we cannot regard 
as accidental the conjunction of this foreordained effect 
with the operations of the children of Israel on this 
particular day. It was by divine forethought that the 
line of march of the children of Israel led them to this 
point at that particular time, and that Moses was able 
to inspire them with confidence to take up their march 
when he should stretch out his rod over the retiring 
waters. Such a conjunction of the action of vast phys- 
ical forces coming to the relief of a people in their dire 
necessity has in it all the marks of design which the 



ii4 The Exodus 

human mind needs to connect the event directly with 
the will of God, 

But we are not shut up to this single explanation of 
God's relation to the event. The men of science have 
no formula by which they can eliminate God from 
direct activity in so controlling the forces of nature as 
to bring about new combinations and new results, as 
the exigencies of history and the action of man's free 
will may require. It is as easy for God, and no more in- 
consistent with what we know of the laws of nature, 
that he should start a storm which should be far- 
reaching in its influence, as that a man should blow 
with a bellows to dust his mantel or kindle his fire. 
Science has no final word for the question which here 
meets us. This strong east wind may have been as 
directly aroused for this occasion as is the puff of our 
own breath with which we warm our fingers or cool 
our porridge. In both cases the action of the powers 
of nature is modified and diverted to the accomplish- 
ment of specific purposes which nature alone would 
not have accomplished. 

Interpretation of the Rhetorical Language. — We 
cannot leave this subject, however, without alluding to 
some objections which may be obviated by attention to 
correct principles of interpretation. It is said (Ex. xiv. 
22) that the "waters were a wall unto them on their 



The Exodus. 115 

right and on their left." But when we consider the 
natural rhetorical use of this word " wall," it presents 
no difficulty. In Prov. xviii. 1 1 we are told that " the 
rich man's wealth is his strong city, and as a high wall 
in his own imagination " ; while in Isa. xxvi. 1 we are 
told that " God will appoint salvation for walls and 
bulwarks"; and, again, in Nahum iii. 8, Egypt is de- 
scribed as she " that was situate among the rivers [mar- 
gin, " canals "], that had the waters round about her; 
whose rampart was the sea [margin, " the Nile "] and 
her wall was of the sea." In all these cases one readily 
perceives that the purpose of defense which a wall 
serves, is the idea which is figuratively expressed. And 
so we find sufficient warrant for this meaning in the 
protection which was given by the deep water of the 
Bitter Lakes on one flank of the host, and that of the 
Gulf of Suez upon the other, as they were marching to 
a place of safety upon the other side. There was no 
chance for Pharaoh to intercept them by a flank move- 
ment. He could only press upon their rear, as he did, 
and come into the channel, when the returning waters 
overwhelmed his army. 

Similarly the passages in the Song of Moses, which 
follows, are to be interpreted in accordance with the 
highly rhetorical character of the composition. There 
we are told that the retirement of the sea was accom- 



n6 The Exodus. 

plished by the " blast of God's nostrils," which even a 
child could understand as a poetical expression for 
" wind." It is further said that the " deeps were con- 
gealed in the heart of the sea," which literally would 
imply that the children crossed on ice, but which re- 
veals its meaning without any difficulty even to the 
ordinary reader. Again, in Ex. xv. 12, it is said that 
the earth swallowed Pharaoh's host, where again the 
misunderstanding of the poetic figure, by overemphasis 
upon the letter, would indicate almost absolute lack of 
knowledge of the true principles of literary interpreta- 
tion. 

In conclusion, it is proper to call renewed attention 
to the extent to which this analysis of the biblical state- 
ments and Of the physical conditions in which the his- 
tory is located, confirms the account. The story fits 
the circumstances so perfectly, or, in other words, the 
conditions implied so correspond with the facts stated, 
that the history is supported by the strongest form of 
circumstantial evidence. It is not within the power of 
man to invent a story so perfectly in accordance with 
the vast and complicated conditions involved. The ar- 
gument is as strong as that for human design' when a 
key is found to fit a Yale lock. This is not a general 
account which would fit into a variety of circumstances. 



The Exodus. 117 

There is only one place in all the world, and one set 
of conditions in all history, which would meet the re- 
quirements. This is scientific proof. No higher proof 
can be found in the inductive sciences. The story is 
true. It has not been remodeled by the imagination 
either of the original writers or of the transcribers. It 
is not the product of mythological fancy or of legendary 
accretion. 



1 1 8 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 



CHAPTER V. 

PHYSICAL PREPARATION FOR ISRAEL IN 
PALESTINE. 

At the risk of some repetition, we would again call 
attention to the fact, that, however we may emphasize 
the direct agency of God in answering prayer, and in 
providing for the wants of nations in the great crises 
of history, we are not at liberty to overlook the pre- 
venient care for men which appears in the whole order 
of nature. Indeed, it is often difficult to distinguish 
between the direct and the indirect agencies through 
which the Creator provides for human want. When, 
however, the element of time is dropped out of our 
thought, the paternal love which intelligently lays in 
store the provisions which the children will need when 
they arrive at maturity seems as real a manifestation of 
interest as are the supplies which are brought into the 
household from day to day. 

As already remarked, the only tenable view of the 
universe is that of an organized system of secondary 
causes working towards definite ends which are more 
or less distant, but which, at innumerable points, are 
open to limited modification and control by the human 
will, and, at every point, to control by the divine will. 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 119 

In such a conception of nature, it is neither necessary 
nor proper to suppose, even in the performance of a 
miracle, any greater interference with the secondary 
causes than is needed for the accomplishment of the 
required results. It is remarkable to what an extent 
the miracles of the Bible are subordinate to this sup- 
posed Law of Parsimony, differing in this respect most 
strikingly from all other purported miracles. It is in 
this sobriety of the biblical narratives, making only 
moderate demands upon the direct agency of the Crea- 
tor, and calling for only a limited disturbance of the 
course of nature, that we find one of our strongest 
arguments for their truthfulness. 

Human nature has its manifest weaknesses and limi- 
tations. The idea of the presence of God's direct 
agency in the accomplishment of objects is one which, 
when entertained, cannot but overpower the human 
imagination. It is therefore certain to be the case that, 
when a miraculous account is free to be embellished by 
legendary accretions or mythological fancies, it will 
become grotesque, and unable to bear the scrutiny of 
scientific examination. It is therefore a remarkable 
confirmation of the biblical miracles in general, espec- 
ially of those which seem to make most demand upon 
the direct agency of God for their production, that they 
have been provided for in the general course of nature, 



120 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

and involve that minimum amount of direct interfer- 
ence with it which is in analogy with the facts coming 
under the observation of man respecting his own ability 
to control these forces. 

Before subjecting to examination the more striking 
miraculous events in Israel's history connected with the 
physical conditions of the Jordan Valley, it will be 
profitable to get before our minds a general view of the 
geological features of Palestine, which have played so 
important a part in all the history, both ancient and 
modern, of that remarkable land. 

THE GREAT " FAULT " OF THE JORDAN VALLEY. 

The special mission of Israel demanded isolation in 
a peculiar country. Otherwise the people would have 
been amalgamated with the more numerous, more pow- 
erful, and more civilized heathen around them, and 
their exclusive religious development would have been 
rendered extremely difficult, if not impossible. At the 
same time, if their religion was to become universal, 
the theater of historic development must be at a pivotal 
point of the great national movements of the world. 
Both these ends were secured in Palestine by a remark- 
able combination of geological and physical forces 
which has commanded the admiration of all profound 
students of the subject. 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 121 

The great " fault " of the Jordan Valley was pro- 
nounced by Humboldt " the most remarkable geological 
feature anywhere to be found in the world " ; while 
Karl Ritter, in his elaborate geographical publications, 
ever returned to this cleft in the earth's surface, as the 
most significant fact in the natural history of the globe. 
This " fault," or fracture in the crust of the earth, ex- 
tends from Antioch, on the Orontes River, in Syria, to 
the south end of the Gulf of Akabah, a distance of about 
one thousand miles. Indeed, geologists now trace it 
through the Red Sea, and into the lakes of Central Af- 
rica. The Lebanon Mountains, Western Palestine, 
and the Desert of Sinai are on one side of it. The 
Anti-Lebanon Range and the elevated plains of Moab 
and Northern Arabia are on the other side. Along the 
whole dividing line the rocky strata were fractured, 
and the eastern edge of the western 'portion slipped 
down, while the western edge of the eastern mass was 
elevated. 

The depression is most pronounced in the valley of 
the Jordan and the Dead Sea. Lake Huleh and the 
marshy plain extending north to Caesarea Philippi are 
almost exactly at sea-level ; but Lake Galilee is more 
than 600 feet, and the Dead Sea 1,292 feet, below the 
level of the Mediterranean. In its deepest place the 
bottom of the Dead Sea is 2,600 feet below ocean-level, 



122 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

and since the heights of Moab and those near Hebron 
are more than 3,000 feet above the Mediterranean, it 
follows that the bottom of the Dead Sea is depressed 
nearly 6,000 feet below the general land-level. The 
rock strata on the surface of the plains of Moab cor- 
respond to those on the western margin of the Jordan 
Valley and of the Dead Sea. Western Palestine is a 
gigantic arch of rock strata, with Shiloh, Jerusalem, 
and Hebron on its summit, its eastern foot at the bot- 
tom of the Dead Sea, and its western base below the 
plains of Philistia on the Mediterranean. 

The western arch, however, has one remarkable in- 
terruption in Palestine. This appears in the plain of 
Esdraelon, which occupies a " cross-fault," extending 
from the Jordan a little south of Lake Galilee to the 
Mediterranean at the north end of Mount Carmel. 
Nazareth lies a little to the north of this cross-fracture, 
while the Mount of Precipitation, over which his fel- 
low-townsmen were on the point of casting Jesus, is a 
portion of the northern cliff, facing Esdraelon, produced 
by the cross-fault. Mount Tabor, a few miles to the 
east, is an outlying mass of rock which did not settle 
with the rest of the valley, and is still connected by a 
low ridge with the main mass to the north. 

The summit of the valley of Esdraelon, between 
Mount Tabor and Jezreel, is only about two hundred 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 123 

feet above the Mediterranean. The depression, there- 
fore, affords the natural line of communication between 
the shore of this sea and the country east of the Jordan. 
This was the main route followed by the caravans from 
the valley of the Euphrates through Damascus to the 
Mediterranean at Acre, and thence along the shore to 
Egypt. It was this which made the valley of Esdrae- 
lon the great battle-field between the east and the west. 
Recently an English company has built a railway from 
Acre through this valley to the Jordan, and thence to 
Damascus. Thus, from first to last, it has been a great 
highway for the nations. 

Yet, upon either side, the ascent to the hills is so 
rapid, and the country so inaccessible, that there has 
been little temptation for military occupation by for- 
eigners. When Napoleon led his expedition from 
Egypt to Syria, he established his headquarters for a 
while on the plain at Ramleh, near Jaffa, and later be- 
sieged Acre, and made his headquarters near Jezreel ; 
while his ablest general, Kleber, fought an important 
battle at the base of Mount Tabor. Meanwhile Jeru- 
salem was left undisturbed in its isolated position among 
the mountains of Judasa. When asked why he did not 
capture Jerusalem, Napoleon replied that it was so out 
of the way that it was of no general military signifi- 
cance. There can be no question, that the warning of 



124 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

the prophets against alliances with the great nations in 
the valleys of the Nile and Euphrates conformed to the 
highest principles of both military and political wisdom. 
There was little motive for Assyria to capture Jerusa- 
lem, except as she was an ally of Egypt. Her strength 
was in the natural independence of her isolation. 

Next to the Caucasus, Judaea is, from a military 
point of view, one of the most easily defended regions 
in the world. The approaches from the west are 
through steep and circuitous mountain gorges, in which 
an attacking army is in constant peril from surprises. 
The trails from Samaria to Jerusalem are, even now, 
almost impassable to horses, while the desert and diffi- 
cult roads protect it from the south. Joshua's march 
from Jericho up the valley to the summit at Ai and 
Bethel, a few miles north of Jerusalem, exhibited the 
perfection of military tactics. From this point of van- 
tage he could sweep along the central ridge to the south, 
and easily occupy the main positions of importance. 
Providence was not altogether blind in leading the chil- 
dren of Israel through Moab to the head of the Dead 
Sea and to the passes that lead thence to the central 
part of the Promised Land. 

North of the valley of Esdraelon the land was almost 
equally protected. The approach to Lake Galilee by 
the Jordan Valley is difficult. The entire east-and-west 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 125 

" fault " facing Esdraelon from the north presents a 
precipitous front which is easily defended. The moun- 
tains on both the east and the west side of the valley, 
beginning at the south end of Lake Galilee and extend- 
ing to the ancient Dan, are lofty, and inaccessible to a 
military force; while north of Dan the valley between 
Lebanon and Mount Hermon is so deeply filled with 
debris of a recent volcanic eruption that it is practically 
impassable. The Litany River, which rises near Baal- 
beck and flows south through the valley between Leb- 
anon and Anti-Lebanon, as though it would join the 
waters of the Jordan Valley, meets the barrier, and 
suddenly turns at a right angle to enter the Mediter- 
ranean near Sidon. The observant traveler cannot fail 
to be impressed with the completeness of this barrier as 
he crosses its southern projection near Dan, and takes 
a glance at the successive steps with which the volcanic 
material rises across the valley to the north. 

Thus, with this barrier of rough basaltic rocks to the 
north, the precipitous mountain walls on the east and 
west, and the desert on the south, Palestine was specially 
prepared to be the home of a " peculiar people." At the 
same time the great highway between the east and the 
west passed through its center, but so walled in that 
there was little temptation for an armed force to inter- 
fere with peaceable people on either side. So that, as 



1 2b Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

Origen forcibly maintained, Palestine, though insignifi- 
cant in itself, was so centrally situated that it was the 
fittest of all places for the dissemination of Christianity 
to the ends of the earth. 

THREE GREAT MIRACLES. 

The falling of the walls of Jericho, the parting of the 
waters of the Jordan, and the destruction of Sodom and 
Gomorrah are three notable miracles upon which the 
physical history of Palestine sheds much light. All 
these seem to be directly connected with the natural 
causes which have produced the " great Jordan Fault," 
and which render the region specially subject to earth- 
quakes. 

The Falling of the Walls of Jericho. — This striking 
phenomenon can easily be referred to an earthquake 
for its secondary cause. 

The preliminary report of the State Earthquake In- 
vestigation Committee appointed immediately after the 
catastrophe at San Francisco, on the 1 8th of April, 
1906, sheds some interesting light upon the somewhat 
similar catastrophe at Jericho three thousand years ago. 
Professor A. C. Lawson, of the State University of 
California, was chairman of the committee, and there 
were associated with him a number_ of the most emi- 
nent geologists of the country. In reading their report, 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 127 

one can but be remarkably impressed by the similarity 
of conditions in the valley of the Jordan and along the 
coast of California. In California, as in the valley of 
the Jordan, a long " fault " is to be observed running 
parallel with the Coast Range for a distance of many 
hundred miles. Along this fault the dislocation of the 
strata amounts to many hundred feet. According to 
the Commission, probably every movement on this line 
produced an earthquake, the severity of which was pro- 
portioned to the amount of movement. 

" The cause of these movements in general terms is 
that stresses are generated in the earth's crust which 
accumulate till they exceed the strength of the rocks 
composing the crust, and they find relief in a sudden 
rupture. This establishes the plane of dislocation in 
the first instance, and in future movements the stresses 
have only to accumulate to the point of overcoming the 
friction on that plane and any cementation that may 
have been effected in the intervals between movements. 
The earthquake of the 18th of April, 1906, was due 
to one of these movements " (p. 10). 

For a distance of one hundred and eighty-five miles 
the effect of the movement was clearly traced. The 
observed displacement was both horizontal and vertical. 
In many cases one side of the fault was shoved past the 
other horizontally for a distance of fifteen or sixteen 
feet, and in one case a roadway was found to have 



128 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

been differentially moved twenty feet. This would 
produce the circular motion, so often referred to by 
observers, which was specially destructive of loosely 
constructed stone buildings. A correspondent write? 
that the bricks in his chimney were scattered like grain 
from the hand of a sower. At the same time there was 
a vertical movement of several feet. A striking result 
of the investigation is that the most destructive effects 
were found on made land, and on sedimentary deposits 
adjoining the main line of fracture. In the words of 
the report, — 

"Within the area of destructive effects, approximately 
four hundred by fifty miles in extent, the intensity 
varied greatly. There was a maximum immediately 
on the rift line. Water pipes, conduits, and bridges 
crossing this line were rent asunder. Trees were up- 
rooted and thrown to the ground in large numbers. 
Some trees were snapped off, leaving their stumps 
standing, and others were split from the roots up. 
Buildings and other structures were in general violently 
thrown and otherwise wrecked, though some escaped 
with but slight damage. Fissures opened in the earth 
and closed again, and in one case reported a cow was 
engulfed. 

"A second line of maximum destruction lies along 
the floor of the valley system of which the Bay of San 
Francisco is the most notable feature, and particularly 
in the Santa Rosa and Santa Clara valleys. Santa 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine, ng 

Rosa, situated twenty miles from the rift, was the 
most severely shaken town in the State and suffered the 
greatest disaster relatively to its population and extent. 
Healdsburg suffered to a nearly similar degree. San 
Jose, situated thirteen miles, and Agnews, about twelve 
miles from the rift, are next in the order of severity. 
Stanford University, seven miles from the rift, is prob- 
ably to be placed in the same category. All of these 
places are situated on the valley floor and are underlain 
to a considerable depth by loose or but slightly coherent 
geological formations, and their position strongly sug- 
gests that the earth waves as propagated by such forma- 
tions are much more destructive than the waves which 
are propagated by the firmer and highly elastic rocks of 
the adjoining hill lands " (p. 13). 

"... The most violent destruction of buildings [in 
San Francisco], as everybody knows, was on the made 
ground. This ground seems to have behaved during the 
earthquake very much in the same way as jelly in a 
bowl, or as a semi-liquid material in a tank. The earth 
waves which pass through the highly elastic rocks 
swiftly with a small amplitude seem in this material 
to have been transformed into slow undulations of 
great amplitude which were excessively destructive " 
(P- 15). 

In the light of all this, it is important to observe that 
the city of Jericho stood upon the deep, recent, uncon- 
solidated sedimentary deposits which fill the valley of 
the Jordan. The conditions are strikingly like those 



130 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

existing in the vicinity of San Francisco, where the 
greatest destruction occurred during the recent catas- 
trophe. The brief account in Joshua is very lifelike : — 

" So the people shouted, and the priests blew the 
trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard 
the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with 
a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the 
people went up into the city, every man straight before 
him, and they took the city" (vi. 20). 

The reader should not fail to notice that the blowing 
of the trumpets is not represented by the sacred writer 
to be the cause of the falling of the walls, but merely 
a concomitant. We are left to believe that the two 
events were brought together by divine foresight, and 
it was in this that the miraculous nature of the event 
consists. The mine beneath the walls of Jericho was 
so deeply laid that only divine power and prescience 
could explode it at the proper time to accomplish its 
spiritual purpose. 

The Parting of the Waters of the Jordan.— -The bib- 
lical account reads as follows: — 

"Joshua iii. 13 And it shall come to pass, when the 
soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of Je- 
hovah, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the wa- 
ters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall 
be cut off, even the waters that come down from above ; 
and they shall stand in one heap. 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 131 

"14 And it came to pass, when the people removed 
from their tents, to pass over the Jordan, the priests 
that bare the ark of the covenant being before the peo- 
ple; 15 and when they that bare the ark were come 
unto the Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare 
the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (for 
the Jordan overfloweth all its banks all the time of 
harvest), 16 that the waters which came down from 
above stood, and rose up in one heap, a great way off, 
at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those 
that went down toward the sea of the Arabah, even the 
Salt Sea, were wholly cut off; and the people passed 
over right against Jericho. 17 And the priests that 
bare the ark of the covenant of Jehovah stood firm on 
dry ground in the midst of the Jordan ; and all Israel 
passed over on dry ground, until all the nation were 
passed clean over the Jordan." 

This is certainly a very simple and straightforward 
description of a natural phenomenon. There is nothing 
fantastic about it, and nothing incongruous with the 
surrounding conditions. It is said that the waters from 
above, that is, up stream, rose up and extended as far 
as the city of Adam, a distance of several miles, and 
that the supply of water was cut off that formerly ran 
down to the Salt Sea. This is a very accurate account 
of what would occur if suddenly a dam was thrown 
across the stream, some little distance above, ponding 
the water back on that side, and cutting off the supply 



132 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

below. When first visiting the scene, I was greatly 
surprised to see that I had not read the account with 
sufficient care to appreciate its simplicity and accuracy. 

There are two natural agencies that at this point 
could easily have produced the phenomena here de- 
scribed. By some it has been thought that the obstruc- 
tion was caused by a land-slip somewhere above, which 
temporarily cut off the water below. But it is equally 
possible that the obstruction was produced by a gentle 
swell of the land across the channel pushed up by an 
earthquake. 

A similar interruption of the waters of the Columbia 
River, in Oregon, is known to have occurred at the 
Cascades, where an old channel was permanently ob- 
structed by an immense land-slide, producing a lake 
above, whose outlet is still over the rocks, which causes 
the cascade. We can give no better description of the 
phenomena than by quoting, from Science for 1887, the 
words of Major C. E. Dutton, for a long time a prom- 
inent member of the United States Geological Survey. 

" The Columbia enters the Cascade barrier three or 
four miles below the Dalles. The platform of that 
range here has a width of eighty miles. From the Dalles 
to the Cascade Locks, a distance of over fifty miles, the 
Columbia River flows as a broad, deep, quiet stream, 
with a sluggish current at low water. Its course re- 



134 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

sembles that of the Hudson through the Highlands; 
and this fact is at once suggestive, because the passage 
of rivers through mountain ranges is generally swift, 
and broken by many rapids. If it is otherwise, there is 
almost certainly an interesting reason for it. The Cas- 
cade Locks are situated almost exactly on the axis of 
the Cascade range. Here is a cataract which has always 
been an insurmountable obstacle to navigation ; for, 
within a distance of a few hundred yards, the river 
makes a descent of about thirty feet. The government 
is now building a short canal with large locks, to enable 
steamboats from below to reach the still waters above. 
Beginning at a point about a mile and a half above the 
cataract, the traveler, as he sails up the river, observes 
many old stubs protruding from the water and from the 
sand-banks, laid bare during the low stages of the river. 
They are seen for a distance of thirty miles, recurring 
at frequent intervals, here clustered thickly together 
like the piles of an old wharf whose superstructure has 
decayed and vanished, there with wide intervals be- 
tween them. During high water these tree-trunks are 
entirely submerged. An examination of the wood 
serves to identify them with the living species of fir 
which form the forests upon the mountains and cliffs 
round about. 

" These submerged trees, together with the long still 
reach of water above, at once suggest that an obstacle 
has been placed athwart the stream, forming a dam 
which converted the river valley above it into a long, 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 135 

narrow lake, and that the rising water submerged an 
old forest of which these trees are the vestiges. Indeed, 
this is the only explanation which suggests itself. It is 
strongly corroborated by many other circumstances 
which may not be enlarged upon here. No geologist 
who has visited the locality has ever doubted, so far 
as I know, that this is, in general form, the true expla- 
nation. The only question which arises is about the 
nature of the obstacle which has dammed the river " 
(pp. 82-83). 

Of three possible explanations we will note, first, 
that of Major Dutton, who supposes at the Cascades 
a post-glacial " uplift of the entire platform athwart 
the river valley in the shape of a very flat anticlinal 
arch. The width or span of this arch is about five and 
one-half miles, and the eastern branch of the flexure 
is steeper than the western." The river has now cut a 
gorge so far through the lower part of this obstruction 
that " it will probably require not more than a century 
or two for it to have cleared a passage deep enough to 
drain the slack-water reach above. The work of cut- 
ting a passage through the obstruction five and one- 
half miles in length is nearly complete" (p. 83). 
Major Dutton's supposition is that this obstruction 
was formerly much higher than now, having been much 
lowered by the action of the river, and that, when it 
was at the former height, sediment had accumulated 



136 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

above the obstruction so as to bury the forest, and so 
preserve it from decay until, through the lowering of 
the stream, it is now being uncovered. 

Dr. S. F. Emmons, another eminent member of the 
United States Geological Survey, objected to this the- 
ory on the ground that an earth movement such as 
Major Dutton supposes along the axis of the Cascade 
Mountains could not easily be supposed to have pro- 
ceeded more rapidly than the corrasion of the stream 
in lowering the obstruction, and " then conveniently 
have stopped, so as to allow corrasion to gain its 
former ascendency over the earth movement." 

As a counter theory, Dr. Emmons gave prominence 
to a tradition, widely circulated among the Indians and 
Hudson Bay trappers, which relates that " there once 
existed a natural bridge at the Cascades, and that the 
ancestors of the present tribes (probably at no very dis- 
tant period) used to cross the river here dry shod," and 
that this bridge at length collapsed through the effect 
of the undercutting of the stream, and so formed the 
obstruction which now causes the Cascades. So gen- 
erally disseminated is this tradition that it is made to 
play an important part in a popular novel, whose scenes 
are mostly laid in that region. But the theory can be 
best stated in Dr. Emmons's own words. 

"At the time when the general cutting of the Co- 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 137 

lumbia had reached about the level of the present flood- 
plain at the Cascades, through some crack or other 
natural opening its waters found a passage into the 
underlying conglomerate bed, which, being permeable, 
allowed a passage of this water down stream to a point 
in the bed itself where it outcropped at or above the 
level of the lower part of the stream. Such a passage, 
once established, would be rapidly enlarged by the 
force of such an overlying mass of water as the Colum- 
bia River; and to those familiar with the corrading 
force of water, as shown in the stream action of western 
rivers, it must readily be apparent that it would soon 
become large enough to take in the whole stream ; that 
thus for a certain distance the whole Columbia would 
run underground, like the so-called ' Lost Rivers,' 
which are still found under the basalt flows of the 
Snake River plains. Thus would have been formed 
the natural bridge spoken of by the Indians. More- 
over, by this lowering of its bed at this point, the bed 
of the river above would have been correspondingly 
lowered, and tree-growth would have gradually extend- 
ed down to the water's edge, as it does at present. 

" Meantime the corrasion of this underground 
stream would gradually wear away the supports of the 
overhanging sheet of basalt, until at length they became 
inadequate to hold it up; and when they fell, the un- 
derground passage would have been suddenly filled, the 
river dammed up to the present level, and the stream 
also backed up so as to cover the roots of and thereby 



138 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

kill the trees along the lower part of its banks. Such is 
essentially the present condition of the stream, for the 
broken masses of the basalt which form the present 
stream bed at the Cascades resist the wearing-away of 
the water better than did the conglomerate, and the 
river above the Cascades still stands at a higher level 
than it did before the falling-in of the basalt bridge " 
(P- 157)- 

The third theory is one presented by Dr. J. S. New- 
berry, an equally eminent authority, who visited the 
place in 1855, in connection with the Pacific Railroad 
survey, and is one which Mr. S. Prentiss Baldwin and 
I were independently led to adopt when we visited the 
region in 1890, and of which the accompanying pho- 
tographs seem to be a complete demonstration. Ac- 
cording to this theory, the Columbia River had, before 
the growth of the buried forest, cut a gorge completely 
through the obstruction presented by the anticlinal arch 
referred to by Major Dutton; so that there was a grad- 
ual descent all the way from the Dalles to the section 
of the river which is below the Cascades. But this 
channel, where it was comparatively narrow at the 
Cascades, was finally obstructed by an immense land- 
slide from the south, which turned the water of the 
river into its present course over the rocky bed which 
forms the Cascades. According to this supposition, the 



140 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

trees which had grown down the bank covering the old 
lower flood-plain above the Cascades were submerged 
and killed as they frequently are in reservoirs made by 
artificial means. 

Since the trees are still undecayed, it would follow 
that their submergence did not occur more than one 
hundred or two hundred years ago, for this longer 
period is the extreme limit that could be allowed for 
wood in that wet climate to resist decay. Some such 
date as this also must probably be given to the origin 
of the tradition referred to, which might easily arise, 
even though there was no complete natural bridge at 
that time, as Professor Emmons supposes. For, ac- 
cording to this theory, the wide expanse now covered 
by the water as it falls over the Cascades was high and 
dry, bordered merely by a comparatively narrow chan- 
nel on the south side. Furthermore, for a brief period 
after the landslide, there would be a dry passage com- 
pletely across until the vast reservoir above was filled. 

This explanation is supported by the fact that below 
the Cascades the land on the south side along which the 
railroad runs is constantly sliding into the river, so as 
to occasion great solicitude to the engineers who are 
looking after the safety of the roadbed. Upon going 
back into the forest between the railroad and the 
precipitous face of the mountain one finds immense 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 141 

long crevasses which have been formed at various times 
by the slipping down of the whole bank. Finally the 
accompanying photograph, taken by Mr. Baldwin, in 
the canal bed when under construction, actually ex- 
poses this old channel. It was evident that if the canal 
had been dug a little farther to the south there would 
have been no rock obstruction. Professor Newberry's 
original theory, therefore, seems to be sufficiently well 
supported to be accepted and taught as a doctrine. 

Having studied this problem in the Columbia River 
somewhat carefully several years before, it was with 
the conclusions in mind then formed that I entered the 
Jordan Valley at Jericho, near the ford above the Dead 
Sea. But, on reaching the river's bank, my attention 
was instantly arrested by phenomena which rendered 
plausible the theory of a disturbance by an earthquake. 

Near the Pilgrims' Bathing-Place, the east bank of 
the river is so eroded by the stream as to present a 
perpendicular face. This consists of fine sediment, 
about fifty feet thick, which has been deposited by the 
river when standing at a higher level, and subsequently 
channeled by it when the land-level was relatively 
higher. But what was still more significant, was that 
there were clear indications of three changes of level. 
First, there had been an elevation of about fifteen feet, 
during which erosion had proceeded to that extent. 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 143 

Then there had been a return of the water to the higher 
level and a re-sedimentation up to the old limit. This 
was followed by a re-channeling of the whole, during 
which the river had cut through both the later and the 
upper sediment, and also for fifteen feet lower down. 1 

The most natural interpretation of this succession 
is, that, after the channel had been cut down the first 
fifteen feet, there was an elevation, through subterra- 
nean forces, of the bed of the stream a mile or two 
below. This would dam up the water temporarily, 
and afford a dry crossing-place for a few hours, or even 
longer, and make the waters seem to pile up above, as 
described in Josh. iii. 13-17. When, however, at 
length, the water began to run over the obstacle to its 
progress, there would be opportunity to refill with sedi- 
ment a part of its bed above ; so that, on later reerosion 
to its present level, it would present the phenomena now 
to be observed. I have not evidence sufficient to form 
an opinion as to whether the episode in the river's his- 
tory brought to light by these facts relates to the same 
epoch with that of the miracle recorded in the Penta- 
teuch; but it certainly gives a plausible explanation of 
the probable secondary causes used in accomplishing it. 

Here, again, on this supposition, there was a particu- 
lar use, for a moral purpose, of the subterranean forces 
which have so long operated in producing the great de- 



144 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

pression of the Jordan Valley. If one contends that the 
exhibition of this force at that time was foreordained, 
he must still bring in prophetic, or divine, foresight to 
secure the presence of the hosts of Israel there at the 
precise juncture, and this involves all the essential ele- 
ments of a miracle. 

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. — The 
probable secondary cause employed in the destruction 
of Sodom and Gomorrah was the ignition by an earth- 
quake of a vast underlying reservoir of gas and petro- 
leum. The Upper Cretaceous strata which, in the 
great Jordan Fault, have been thrown down below the 
level of the Dead Sea, contain much bituminous lime- 
stone, such as naturally gives rise to pools of petroleum 
and inflammable gas. Familiarity with the gas and oil 
regions of the United States, and a recent visit to the 
still more remarkable oil-fields at Baku, on the Caspian 
Sea, made the description of the destruction of Sodom 
and Gomorrah seem exceedingly natural and lifelike. 

Professor B. K. Emerson, 2 one of our most eminent 
geologists, describes the region about the Dead Sea as 
one 

" where sulphur, deposited by many hot springs, is 
abundant in the clay, and where bitumen oozes from 
every crevice of the rock, and every earthquake dis- 
lodges great sheets of it from the bottom of the lake, 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 145 

where Arabs still dig pits for the ' stone of Moses ' to 
gather in, and sell it in Jerusalem, and where, in that 
most ancient fragment of the Pentateuch, four kings 
fought against five, and the kings of Sodom and Go- 
morrah slipped in the slime-pits and fell. One who 
has read of the burning of an oil well on Oil Creek, or 
in Apscheron will have a clear idea of the catastrophe 
which overtook the cities of the plain where the Lord 
rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and 
fire out of heaven. 

" Following the latest extremely interesting re- 
searches of Blankenkorn, 3 we may picture the upper 
cretaceous plateau of Judea, — an old land, cleft at the 
end of the Tertiary by many faults, between which a 
great block sank to form the bottom of this deep sea. 
It carried down in the fossiliferous and gypsum-bearing 
beds the source of the bitumen and the sulpher. ... In 
the earlier portion of this last or post-glacial stadium, 
a final sinking of a fraction of the bottom of the trough, 
near the south end of the lake, dissected the low salt 
plateau, sinking its central parts beneath the salt waters, 
while fragments remain buttressed against the great 
walls of the trench forming the plains of Djebel Usdum 
and the peninsula El Listan, with the swampy Sebcha 
between. ... It exposed the wonderful eastern wall of 
Djebel Usdum: seven miles long, with 30-45 meters of 
clear blue salt at the base, capped by 125-140 meters 
of gypsum-bearing marls impregnated with sulphur, 
and conglomerates at times cemented with bitumen. 



146 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

It was this or some similar and later sinking of the 
ground, at the time when geology and history join, 
which, with its earthquakes, overthrew the cities of 
the plain and caused the outpour of petroleum from 
the many fault fissures and the escape of great 
volumes of sulphurous and gaseous emanation, which, 
ignited either spontaneously, by lightning, or by 
chance, furnished the brimstone and fire from heaven, 
and the smoke of the land going up as the smoke of 
a furnace which Abraham saw from the plains of 
Judea." 

An oil-well opened in Texas in 1900 sent up to a 
height of two hundred feet a stream of oil six inches in 
diameter, and poured out 25,000 barrels of oil per day. 
The late Professor Edward Orton reported that he had 
seen the pressure-gauge on a gas well in Central New 
York register 2,600 pounds to the square inch. The 
pressure on the piston of a locomotive rarely goes much 
over one hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch. 
The oil-fields at Baku on the Caspian Sea are limited 
to a few square miles, yet this small area produces as 
much as all the American fields combined, about 100,- 
000,000 barrels annually. When a well is sunk a few 
hundred feet to the subterranean reservoir, the oil 
comes up with such force that there is no possibility of 
controlling it. The drills are thrown out by the pres- 
sure, together with such quantities of stones, that the 



148 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

derricks are battered to pieces, and a cone of debris is 
piled up around the orifice. Meanwhile the oil is 
caught by dams in the open fields. 

The reports of burning oil-wells near Baku exceed 
the highest flights of the imagination : — 

" In the spring of 1901, an immense fountain was 
struck by Messrs. Mantasheff, which commenced with 
such violence that the roar was heard all over the oil 
fields, and many people were aroused from their sleep. 
The derrick was blown to splinters at the first out- 
break, and a vertical column of oil and sand rose to a 
height of several hundred feet, flinging stones in all 
directions and drenching the neighborhood with oil. 
The derrick and engine-house were soon hidden from 
view by a large mound of sand, from the center of 
which the huge fountain arose, and all the houses, work- 
shops, etc., in the district were covered with oil. Every 
fire within a radius of several hundred yards had to be 
extinguished, and the whole of the valuable properties 
surrounding this plot were for many days shut down 
completely. Houses in the immediate vicinity were 
flooded out and rendered uninhabitable, and within a 
large circuit the drain-spouts from the roofs of the 
buildings were pouring streams of oil into the road- 
ways. The main roads were flooded with oil several 
feet deep in places, and the oil in some cases was more 
than a foot deep in the rooms of the dwelling-houses, 
which the inhabitants had been forced to vacate speed- 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 149 

ily, and the roofs of which had in many cases collapsed 
from the weight of sand upon them. 

"An even more destructive fountain was one of the 
Baku Oil Co., at Bibi-Eibat, in 1901; this commenced 
to spout with terrific force from a great depth, com- 
pletely wrecking the derrick, and, after rising to a 
considerable height, was entirely at the mercy of the 
winds. This fountain is estimated to have yielded 
about 1,000,000 poods [about 100,000 barrels] daily 
for the first few days, during which time the oil flooded 
all the surrounding properties, and caused a total ces- 
sation of work over most of the Bibi-Eibat oil field. A 
changeable wind drove the oil alternately to different 
parts of the field, deluging miles of land, and blacken- 
ing and damaging every building within its reach. A 
stiff breeze drove the oil towards Baku, and almost 
every house in Baieloff, a suburb of Baku, was black- 
ened and soaked with petroleum, including the Russian 
church, public buildings, and private residences. Oil 
spray was falling over Baku three miles away, and 
sheets of note-paper exposed to the air near the railway 
station at almost five miles' distance were spotted with 
oil particles. The ships in the harbor did not escape, 
and the gunboats of the Caspian fleet, which are painted 
white, were blackened and made unrecognizable by 
the drifting oil spray. Although some 15,000,000 poods 
[1,500,000 barrels] of oil were secured, the high duty 
payable to the Government, and the enormous demands 
for compensation from persons who suffered damage — 



150 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

for practically the whole of the village of Baieloff had 
to be cleaned and the houses repainted — left but little 
surplus for profit. 

" Perhaps the greatest fountain ever recorded in the 
world's history was that resulting from Mr. Assadu- 
laieff's first boring in Romany [near Baku]. This well 
was the first-bored hole in the district, and the oil 
flowed almost incessantly for years, yielding, it is re- 
ported, between 50,000,000 and 60,000,000 poods 
[5,000,000 or 6,000,000 barrels]." 4 

As already shown, the region of the Dead Sea is 
a partially exhausted gas and oil field, over a deep fis- 
sure in the earth leading far down towards its central 
fires. The description of the destruction of Sodom and 
Gomorrah reads almost exactly like that of some of the 
scenes just described, and is too sober and realistic to 
have been invented. The whole story is told in a few 
words — 

" Genesis xix. 24 Then Jehovah rained upon Sodom 
and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Jehovah 
out of heaven ; 25 and he overthrew those cities, and all 
the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that 
which grew upon the ground. 26 But his wife looked 
back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. 
27 And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the 
place where he had stood before Jehovah: 28 and he 
looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 151 

the land of the Plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke 
of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace. 

" 29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the 
cities of the Plain, that God remembered Abraham, and 
sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he 
overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt." 

From the heights of Hebron, about thirty miles away, 
where Abraham was, the plain about the end of the 
Dead Sea could not be seen. Instead, he saw the smoke 
of the catastrophe ascending " as the smoke of a fur- 
nace." Nothing pertaining to this description has the 
air of fiction. There is nothing fantastic or extravagant 
about it, except as the facts naturally entering into the 
history are, to ill-informed persons, stranger than 
fiction. 

Nor- is the fate of Lot's wife altogether anomalous. 
The eruptions of gas and oil are often accompanied 
with eruptions of salt slime such as presumably envel- 
oped her as she lingered behind. The description of 
her death is certainly very sober, and unconnected with 
the fantastic elements which have been attached to it 
in many popular representations. The phrase " pillar 
of salt " is more definite than the original word de- 
mands. Mound of salt would probably more nearly 
express the idea. But salt is an abundant constituent 
of the rocks around the Dead Sea. The lower strata 



152 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

of Jebel Usdum at the south end consist of solid salt 
one hundred and fifty feet thick. The pillars left by 
the erosion of this stratum have given shape to the pop- 
ular conception. A mound of salty slime exuded from 
an orifice opened by an earthquake would be a most 
common accompaniment of such a catastrophe. 5 

Again we repeat, that this explanation of the miracle, 
while it strongly confirms the truth of the record, does 
not in the least degree impair the miraculous character 
of the event. The use of these natural forces to ac- 
complish the moral purposes of the catastrophe involves 
the direct action of the Creator as really as the aiming 
and firing of a gun at a mark does that of a free hu- 
man agent. The conjunction of this natural catastro- 
phe with this particular epoch in the history both of 
Lot and of Abraham could not have been accidental. 
If the divine agency was not directly involved in setting 
free at that instant the physical forces producing the 
catastrophe, it was involved in securing the relation of 
Lot and Abraham to it. But it is as easy to believe that 
the Lord directly used the forces prepared as that a 
huntsman purposely fires a gun. 

Before passing to the story of the Flood, it will be in 
place briefly to consider the fourteenth chapter of Gen- 
esis, — a document so striking and full of apparently 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 153 

improbable statements that it most readily lends itself 
to our purpose. It reads as follows: — 

" Genesis xiv. 1 And it came to pass in the days 
of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, 
Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, 
2 that they made war with Bera king of Sodom, and 
with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, 
and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela 
(the same is Zoar). 3 All these joined together in the 
vale of Siddim (the same is the Salt Sea). 4 Twelve 
years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth 
year they rebelled. 5 And in the fourteenth year came 
Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and 
smote the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, and the Zu- 
zim in Ham, and Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim, 6 and the 
Horites in their mount Seir, unto El-paran, which is 
by the wilderness. 7 And they returned, and came to 
En-misphat (the same is Kadesh), and smote all the 
country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that 
dwelt in Hazazon-tamar. 8 And there went out the 
king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the 
king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king 
of Bela (the same as Zoar) ; and they set the battle ar- 
ray against them in the vale of Siddim; 9 against 
Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim, 
and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of El- 
lasar; four kings against the five. 10 Now the vale 
of Siddim was full of slime [bitumen] pits; and the 
kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and they fell there, 



154 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

and they that remained fled to the mountain, n And 
they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and 
all their victuals, and went their way. 12 And they 
took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, 
and his goods, and departed. 

" 13 And there came one that had escaped, and told 
Abram the Hebrew: now he dwelt by the oaks of 
Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of 
Aner ; and these were confederate with Abram. 14 And 
when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, 
he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three 
hundred and eighteen, and pursued as far as Dan. 15 
And he divided himself against them by night, he and 
his servants, and smote them, and pursued them unto 
Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. 16 
And he brought back all the goods, and also brought 
back his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women 
also, and the people. 

" 17 And the king of Sodom went out to meet him, 
after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer 
and the kings that were with him, at the vale of Shaveh 
(the same is the King's Vale). 18 And Melchizedeck 
king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he 
was priest of God Most High. 19 And he blessed him, 
and said, Blessed be Abram of God Most High, pos- 
sessor of heaven and earth : 20 and blessed be God 
Most High, who hath delivered thine enemies into thy 
hand. And he gave him a tenth of all. 21 And the 
king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 155 

and take the goods to thyself. 22 And Abram said 
to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up my hand unto 
Jehovah, God Most High, possessor of heaven and 
earth, 23 that I will not take a thread nor a shoe- 
latchet nor aught that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, 
I have made Abram rich : 24 save only that which the 
young men have eaten, and the portion of the men that 
went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre ; let them take 
their portion." 

Until a few years ago, all this was entirely uncon- 
firmed, but it is now confirmed by a remarkable chain 
of discoveries, the last of these being the Laws of 
Khammu-rabi, one of the actors in the scene. This 
confirmation consists not only in the general coincidences 
of the documents, but even more convincingly in those 
minute points of coincidence which only a scientific ob- 
server would notice. These are forcibly presented in 
a recent communication of Professor Sayce to the 
Expository Times for August, 1906, and are thus 
summarized by him : — 

"(1) Cuneiform documents of the Khammu-rabi 
age lie behind the Hebrew text. 

"(2) The documents were Babylonian. This, 
however, does not preclude their having been written in 
Canaan, since the official titles of the years were sent by 
the home government to the Canaanite as to the other 
governors. One of these notices, announcing the of- 



156 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

ficial title of one of the years in the reign of Samsu- 
iluna, the son and successor of Khammu-rabi, has been 
found in the Lebanon, and is now in the American Col- 
lege at Beyrut. 

"(3) The Hebrew text is a translation, or para- 
phrase, of a cuneiform original. This is proved by the 
spelling of Amraphel, Ham, and Zuzim, and the ren- 
dering of Uru-Salim by Salem ; possibly also by the last 
syllable of Amraphel and the first syllable of Eshcol. 
[For example, Amrap is the same as Khammurab, ex- 
cept that, in the latter form, the A is introduced by a 
guttural sound. " The final / in the Hebrew form may 
be explained from the title of ilu, ' god,' given to the 
great king both by himself and by others," or from a 
misreading of the final syllable, which may be pil or 
bi.] A paraphrase is less likely than a free translation, 
since all those who received a Babylonian education 
were accustomed to translating, more or less literally, 
from Sumerian. The Canaanite or Hebrew glosses 
found in the Tel el-Amarna tablets also point to trans- 
lation in the proper sense of the word. 

"(4) The whole chapter belongs to the same period 
of history and literature. 

"(5) The narrative from beginning to end is his- 
torical, and is probably ultimately based on official 
annals. 

"(6) The Babylonian proper names have been 
handed down with remarkable correctness, indicating 
(a) that the same care was taken in Canaan in copying 



Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 157 

older documents as in Babylonia and Assyria; (b) that 
the Hebrew translator was conscientious; (c) that the 
Hebrew text is on the whole to be trusted. 

"(7) The spelling of the name of Amraphel is not 
official Babylonian, that of Chedor-laomer agrees with 
the curious spelling of the Spartali tablets [discovered 
by Dr. Pinches, in which Eri-Aku, the Sumerian equiv- 
alent of Arioch, is spelled, in the favorite rebus fashion, 
Eri-E-kua, the servant of the god E-kua, or the moon 
god. Naturally, therefore, he was called by a portion 
of his Semitic subjects Rim-Sin, a form expressing the 
same idea]. 

"(8) The differences between the Septuagint and 
the Massoretic texts — the Septuagint readings being 
usually preferable to the Massoretic on archaeological 
grounds — show that there has been ' corruption ' of 
the Hebrew text since it was first definitely fixed. 

"(9) W e are therefore justified in believing that 
still greater differences would be discoverable could we 
get back to an earlier text, such as it was before the 
Pentateuch had been reduced to its present form by 
' Ezra and the men of the great Synagogue,' who would 
have done for it what Peisistratus is said to have done 
for Homer; see 2 Es. xiv. 21, 22. In this particular 
chapter, however, the differences, according to (6), 
would not have been material. 

"(10) The Hebrew translation was made after the 
conquest of Laish by the Danites in the lifetime of the 
grandson of Moses, but before Hazeron-tamar had be- 



158 Physical Preparation for Israel in Palestine. 

come En-gedi [as was the case when 2 Chron. xx. 2 
and Joshua xv. 62 were written]. 

"(11) As the use of the so-called Phoenician alpha- 
bet in Palestine and Phoenicia cannot be traced archaeo- 
logically beyond the age of David or Samuel, the 
Hebrew translation of the cuneiform original may have 
been made then. Von Hummelauer has pointed out 
that Deut. xii.-xxvi. 16 represents 'the {not a) book 
of the kingdom ' ( 1 Sam. x. 25 ) written by Samuel 
(Bardenhewer's Biblische Studien, vi. I, 2). That the 
official records of Israel perished in the destruction of 
Shiloh by the Philistines (Jer. vii. 12; xxvi. 6), is 
shown by the loss of the names of the high priests be- 
tween Phineas and Eli, the list in 1 Chron. vi. 4-15, 
50-53 being taken from the genealogy of Ezra (Ezra 
vii. 1-5) combined with some other genealogy. With 
the new regime under Samuel we may therefore con- 
jecture that the new alphabet, and probably also the 
use of the native language, were introduced among the 
Israelites as they seem to have been at Tyre under 
Abibal and Hiram I. Samuel himself bears a name of 
the Khammu-rabi period, Samu-ilu." 

It is certainly difficult to believe that a fictitious doc- 
ument could stand the scrutiny of scientific cross- 
examinatioi. so successfully as this has done. 



Traditions of the Deluge. 159 



CHAPTER VI. 

TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE. 

Of all biblical miracles, the Noachian Deluge is the 
one which seems to make the most extravagant demands 
upon scientific faith. Yet it is this upon which recent 
geological investigations have shed most light, reducing 
the marvel to such reasonable proportions that no one 
need hesitate to accept the biblical story, when properly 
interpreted, upon the strength of the documentary evi- 
dence. At the same time, the sobriety of the biblical 
narrative and the limitations of its demands to such 
events as geology now shows to be easily credible both 
confirm the story itself and guarantee the faithfulness 
with which the book containing the record has been 
preserved from legendary and mythological accretions. 

COMPARISON WITH OTHER TRADITIONS. 

The account of the Flood in Genesis does not stand 
alone. Similar traditions are found among nearly all 
the nations and tribes of the world. So wide-spread 
and persistent are these, that those who have given at- 
tention to the subject have found it difficult to resist 
the conviction that they relate to a common event with 



i6o Traditions of the Deluge. 

which the ancestors of all the present population of the 
world were acquainted in its painful reality. 

But, as might be expected, the traditions in general 
have taken on such local coloring and extravagant pro- 
portions that the kernel of truth underlying them has 
been hopelessly obscured. Among them all, the narra- 
tive in Genesis stands out conspicuous for the grandeur 
and beauty of the divine attributes revealed in connec- 
tion with the catastrophe, for the simplicity of the style 
in which the story is related, and for its undesigned con- 
formity with the natural facts incidentally involved 
in it. 

The traditions with which it is most important to 
compare the biblical narrative are : ( I ) the one in the 
cuneiform tablets discovered by George Smith about 
1870 and supposed to date at least from 3000 B.C., 
and (2) the one given by Berosus. For convenience of 
reference, we place on opposite pages the Bible story 
and a translation of the cuneiform tablets. 1 

BIBLICAL ACCOUNT. 

" Gen. vi. 5 And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man 
was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the 
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it 
repented Jehovah that he had made man on the earth, and it 
grieved him at his heart. 7 And Jehovah said, I will destroy 
man whom I have created from the face of the ground; both 
man, and beast, and creeping things, and birds of* the 



Traditions of the Deluge. 1 6 1 



CUNEIFORM ACCOUNT. 

Nuh-napishtim saith to him, even to Gilgamesh: 

Let me unfold to thee, Gilgamesh, a secret story, 

And the decree of the gods let me tell thee! 

Shurippak, a city thou knowest, — 

On the banks of the Euphrates it lieth; 

That city was full of violence, and the gods within it — ■ 

To make a flood their heart urged them, even the 

mighty gods, 
Their father {i.e. adviser: Gen. 45.8) was Anu, 
Their counsellor the warrior Bel 
Their throne-bearer Ninib, 
Their champion Innugi. 
Nin-igi-azeg, even, la, had sat (or lurked) near them, 

and 
Their talk (or purpose) he repeated to the reed-fence: 
' Reed-fence, reed-fence ! House-wall, house-wall ! 
Reed-fence, listen ! and house-wall give heed ! 
Man of Shurippak, son of Ubara-Tutu, 
Pull down the house, and build a ship ! 
Leave goods, seek life ! 
Property forsake, and life preserve ! 
Cause seed of life of every sort to go up into the ship ! 
The ship which thou shalt build, 
Exact be its dimensions, 
Equal be its breadth and its length! 
On the ocean launch it!' 
I understood, and said unto la my lord: 
' The command, my lord, which thou spakest thus, 
I honour, I will do [it] ! 
[But wh]at shall I answer the city, the people and 

the elders?' 
la framed his mouth and spaketh, 
He saith unto me, his slave: 
' [Ansjwer thus shalt thou make unto them: 



1 62 Traditions of the Deluge. 



BIBLICAL ACCOUNT CONTINUED. 

heavens; for it repenteth me that I have made them. 8 But 
Noah found favor in the eyes of Jehovah. 

" 9 These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a right- 
eous man, and perfect in his generations: Noah walked with 
God. io And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Ja- 
pheth. ii And the earth was corrupt before God, and the 
earth was filled with violence. 12 And God saw the earth, 
and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their 
way upon the earth. 

"13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is 
come before me; for the earth is rilled with violence through 
them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14 
Make thee an ark of gopher wood ; rooms shalt thou make in 
the ark, and shall pitch it within and without with pitch. 15 
And this is how thou shalt make it: the length of the ark three 
hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height 
of it thirty cubits. 16 A light shalt thou make to the ark, 
and to a cubit shalt thou finish it upward; and the door of 
the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof ; with lower, second, 
and third stories shalt thou make it. 17 And, I, behold, I 
do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all 
flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven ; every- 
thing that is in the earth shall die. 18 But I will establish 
my covenant with thee; and thou shalt come into the ark, 
thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with 
thee. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every 
sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with 
thee; they shall be male and female. 20 Of the birds after 
their kind, and of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping 
thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall 
come unto thee, to keep them alive. 21 And take thou unto 
thee of ail food that is eaten, and gather it to thee; and it 
shall be for food for thee, and for them. 22 Thus did Noah; 
according to all that God commanded him, so did he. 



Traditions of the Deluge. 163 



CUNEIFORM ACCOUNT CONTINUED. 

[32] "Bel hath rejected and hateth me, and 

[33] I may no longer dwell in yo[ur] cit[y], and 

[34] Toward Bel's ground I may no longer turn my face: 
but 

[35] I w iH [g°] down to the ocean, [and] with [la] my 
[lord] will I dwell! 

[36] [Upon] you it will rain heavily. . . ."' 

[About twelve lines are broken, or have entirely dis- 
appeared.] 

[37] On the fifth day I laid down the frame of it; 

[38] At its bulwarks (?) its sides were 140 cubits high; 

[39] The border of its top equaled 140 cubits (i.e. every 
way). 

[40] I laid down its form, I figured [or fashioned) it: 

[41] I constructed it in six stories, 

[42] Dividing it into seven compartments; 

[43] Its floors I divided into nine chambers each. 

[44] Water-pegs inside it I drove it in (to stop leaks). 

[45] I chose a mast [or rudder-pole), and supplied what 
was necessary: 

[46] Six sars of bitumen I poured over the outside 

[47] Three sars of bitumen [I poured over] the inside. 

[48] While the basket-bearers were carrying three sars of 
oil abroad, 

[49] I reserved one sar of oil, which the libations (?) con- 
sumed; 

[50] Two sars of oil the shipmen stowed away. 

[51] For [the men's food] I slaughtered oxen; 

[52] I slew [small cattle] every day; 

[53] New wine, sesame wine, oil and grape wine, 

[54] The people [I gave to drink], like the w T ater of a 
river. 

[55] A feast [I made], like New Year's Day. . . . 
[Five lines.] 



164 Traditions of the Deluge. 



BIBLICAL ACCOUNT — CONTINUED. 

" VII. And Jehovah said unto Noah, Come thou and all 
thy house into the ark ; for thee have I seen righteous before 
me in this generation. 2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take 
to thee seven and seven, the male and his female; and of the 
beasts that are not clean two, the male and his female; 3 of 
the birds also of the heavens, seven and seven, male and fe- 
male, to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. 4 For 
yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth 
forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I 
have made will I destroy from off the face of the ground. 
5 And Noah did according unto all that Jehovah commanded 
him. 

" 6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of 
waters was upon the earth. 7 And Noah went in, and his 
sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, 
because of the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean beasts, and of 
beasts that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that 
creepeth upon the ground, 9 there went in two and two unto 
Noah into the ark, male and female, as God commanded Noah. 
10 And it came to pass after the seven days, that the waters 
of the flood were upon the earth. 11 In the six hundredth 
year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth 
day of the month, on the same day were all the fountains of 
the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were 
opened. 12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and 
forty nights. 

"13 In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, 
and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the 
three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; 14 they, and 
every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, 
and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after 
its kind, and every bird after its kind, every bird of every 
sort. 15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and 
two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life. 16 And they 



Traditions of the Deluge. 165 



CUNEIFORM ACCOUNT CONTINUED. 

[With all that I possessed I freighted it; 

With all that I had of silver I freighted it; 

With all that I had of gold I freighted it; 

With all that I had of seed of life of every sort [I 

freighted it] ; 
I put on board all my family and my clan; 
Cattle of the field, wild beasts of the field, all the 

craftsmen, I put on board. 
A time Samas appointed (saying) : — 
' When the Lord of Storm at eventide causeth the 

heavens to rain heavily, 
Enter into the ship, and shut thy door!' 
That time came: 
The Lord of Storm at eventide caused the heavens to 

rain heavily. 
I dreaded the appearance of day; 
I was afraid of beholding day: 
I entered the ship and shut me my door. 
For the steering of the ship, to Bezur-Bel the shipman 
The great vessel (deckhouse?) I handed over, with 

its freight (or gear). 
When the first light of dawn appeared, 
There rose from the foundation of heaven a black 

cloud: 
Rimmon in the heart of it thunde r s, and 
[Nebo] and Merodach march before; 
The Throne-bearers march o'er mountain and plain. 
The mighty Dibbarra (or Girra) wrenches away the 

helm ; 
Ninib goes on, pouring out ruin. 
The Anunnaki (earth-spirits) lifted torches; 
With their sheen they lighten the world. 
Rimmon's violence reacheth to heaven ; 
Whatever is bright he turneth into darkness. 



1 66 Traditions of the Deluge, 



BIBLICAL ACCOUNT CONTINUED 

that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God 
commanded him: and Jehovah shut him in. 17 And the flood 
was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and 
bare up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. 18 And 
the waters prevailed, and increased greatly upon the earth; 
and the ark went upon the face of the waters. 19 And 
the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the 
high mountains that were under the whole heaven were cov- 
ered. 20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and 
the mountains were covered. 21 And all flesh died that moved 
upon the earth, both birds, and cattle, and beasts, and every 
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: 
22 all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, of 
all that was on the dry land, died. 23 And every living thing 
was destroyed that was upon the face of the ground, both 
man, and cattle, and creeping things, and birds of the heavens; 
and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only was 
left, and they that were with him in the ark. 24 And the 
waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days. 

" VIII. And God remembered Noah, and all the beasts, 
and all the cattle that were with him in the ark: and God 
made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; 
2 the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven 
were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained ; 3 
and the waters returned from off the earth continually: and 
after the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters de- 
creased. 4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on 
the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of 
Ararat. 5 And the waters decreased continually until the 
tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, 
were the tops of the mountains seen. 

" 6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah 
opened the window of the ark which he had made: 7 And he 
sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the 



Traditions of the Deluge. 167 



CUNEIFORM ACCOUX1 



One day the southern blast . , . . 

Hard it blew, and .... 

Like a battle-charge upon mankind rush [the waters]. 

One no longer sees another; 

No more are men discerned in (described from) 

heaven. 
The gods were dismayed at the flood, and 
Sought refuge in ascending to the highest heaven {lit. 

the heaven of Anu) : 
The gods cowered like dogs; on the battlements (of 

heaven) they crouched. 
Ishtar screams like a woman in travail, 
The loud-voiced Lady of the gods exclaims: 
'Yon generation is turned again to clay! 
As I in the assembly of the gods foretold the evil — 
Like as I foretold in the assembly of the gods the 

evil ; — 
A tempest for the destruction of my people I foretold. 
But I will give birth to my people (again), though 
Like the fry of fishes they fill the sea!' 
The gods because of the Anunnaki wept with her; 
The gods were downcast, they sate a-weeping; 
Closed were their lips .... 
During six days and nights 
Wind, flood, storm, ever more fiercely whelmed the 

land. 
When the seventh day came, storm (and) flood ceased 

the battle, 
Wherein the}' had contended like a host: 
The sea lulled, the blast fell, the flood ceased. 
I looked for the people [udma], with a cry of lamen- 
tation ; 
[109] But all mankind had turned again to clay: 



Traditions of the Deluge. 



BIBLICAL ACCOUNT CONTINUED. 



waters were dried up from off the earth. 8 And he sent forth 
a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off 
the face of the ground; 9 but the dove found no rest for the 
sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark; for 
the waters were on the face of the whole earth: and he put 
forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into 
the ark. 10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again 
he sent forth the dove out of the ark; 11 and the dove came 
in to him at eventide; and, lo, in her mouth an olive-leaf 
plucked off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from 
off the earth. 12 And he stayed yet other seven days, and 
sent forth the dove ; and she returned not again to him any 
more. 

"13 And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, 
in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were 
dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering 
of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was 
dried. 14 And in the second month, on the seven and 
twentieth day of the month, was the earth dry. 15 And God 
spake unto Noah, saying, 16 Go forth from the ark, thou, and 
thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. 17 
Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of 
all flesh, both birds, and cattle, and every creeping thing that 
creepeth upon the earth ; that they may breed abundantly in 
the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth. 18 
And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his 
sons' wives with him: 19 every beast, every creeping thing, 
and every bird, whatsoever moveth upon the earth, after 
their families, went forth out of the ark. 

" 20 And Noah builded an altar unto Jehovah, and took of 
every clean beast, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt- 
offerings on the altar. 21 And Jehovah smelled the sweet 
savor; and Jehovah said in his heart, I will not again curse 
the ground any more for man's sake, for that the imagination 



Traditions of the Deluge. 169 



CUNEIFORM ACCOUNT CONTINUED. 

The tilled land was become like the waste. 

I opened the window, and daylight fell upon my 

cheeks ; 
Crouching I sit (and) weep; 
Over my cheeks course my tears. 
I looked at the quarters (of heaven), the borders of 

the sea ; 
Toward the twelfth point rose the land. 
To the country of Nizir the ship made way; 
The mountain of the country of Nizir caught the ship, 

and suffered it not to stir. 
One day, a second day, the mountain of Nizir, etc. (as 

before) ; 
A third day, a fourth day, the mountain of Nizir, etc. 

(as before) ; 
A fifth, a sixth, the mountain of Nizir, etc. (as be- 
fore). 
But, when the seventh day was come, 
I brought out a dove (and) let it go. 
The dove went to and fro, but 

Found no foothold {lit. standing-place), and returned 
Then I brought out a swallow (and) let it go. 
The swallow went to and fro, but 
Found no foothold, and returned. 
Then I brought out a raven (and) let it go: 
The raven went off, noticed the drying of the water, 

and 
Feeding, wading, croaking, returned not. 
Then I brought out (everything) to the four winds, 

offered victims, 
Made an offering of incense on the mountain top; 
Seven and seven tripods I set, 
Into their bowls I poured calamus, cedar, fragrant 

herbs ; 



70 Traditions of the Deluge. 



BIBLICAL ACCOUNT — CONTINUED. 

of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again 
smite any more everything living, as I have done. 22 While 
the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, 
and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. 

" IX. And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto 
them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. 2 
And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every 
beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the heavens; with 
all wherewith the ground teemeth, and all the fishes of the 
sea, into your hand are they delivered. 3 Every moving 
thing that liveth shall be food for you ; as the green herb 
have I given you all. 4 But flesh with the life thereof, which 
is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 5 And surely your 
blood, the blood of your lives, will I require; at the hand of 
every beast will I require it: and at the hand of man, even 
at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life 
of man. 6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his 
blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. 7 And 
you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in 
the earth, and multiply therein. 

" 8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, 
saying, 9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, 
and with your seed after you; 10 and with every living crea- 
ture that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of 
the earth with you ; of all that go out of the ark, even every 
beast of the earth. 11 And I will establish my covenant with 
you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters 
of the flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to de- 
stroy the earth. 12 And God said, This is the token of the 
covenant which I make between me and you and every living 
creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I do 
set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a 
covenant between me and the earth. 14 And it shall come 
to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow 



Traditions of the Deluge. 171 



CUNEIFORM ACCOIJ NT CONTINUED. 

[135] The gods snuffed the odour, 

[136] The gods snuffed the pleasant odour, 

[137] The gods like flies swarmed above the sacrificer. 

[138] But when Ishtar was come from afar, 

[139] She lifted up the Great Gems (?), which Anu had 
made to adorn her. 

[140] 'These gods' (she cried), 'by mine azure collar (lit. 
by the lapis lazuli of my neck), I will never forget! 

[141] These days will I bear in mind, and nevermore for- 
get! 

[142] Let the gods go to the incense-offering! 

[143] (But) let Bel never go to the incense-offering! 

[144] Forasmuch as he took no counsel, but caused the flood, 

[145] And delivered my people to destruction.' 

[146] But when Bel was come- from afar, 

[147] He saw the ship, and Bel w T axed wrathful ; 

[148] He was filled with rage at the gods, (and) the Igigi 
(i.e. the spirits of heaven) : 

[149] 'Some soul' (he cried) 'hath escaped! 

[150] Let not a man survive the destruction!' 

[151] Ninib frameth his mouth and speaketh — 

[152] He saith to the w^arrior Bel: 

[153] 'Who then but la doeth the thing? 

[154] la is versed in every wile.' 

[155] la frameth his mouth and speaketh — 

[156] He saith to the warrior Bel: 

[ J 57] 'Thou, O sage of the gods (and) warrior — 

[158] In nowise hast thou been well-counselled in causing 
a flood ! 

[159] On the sinner lay his sin! 

[160] On the guilty lay his guilt! 

[161] (But) remit (somewhat) ! let him not be cut off! for- 
bear ! let him not [be swept away] ! 

[162] Instead of thy causing a flood, 



172 Traditions of the Deluge. 

BIBLICAL ACCOUNT — CONCLUDED. 

shall be seen in the cloud, 15 and I will remember my cove- 
nant, which is between me and you and every living creature 
of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to 
destroy all flesh. 16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and 
I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting cove- 
nant between God and every living creature of all flesh that 
is upon the earth. 17 And God said unto Noah, This is the 
token of the covenant which I have established between me 
and all flesh that is upon the earth." 

Following is the account by Berosus, a Chaldean 
priest who lived in the time of Alexander the Great 
and his immediate successors : — 

"After the death of Ardates, his son Xisuthrus 
reigned 18 sari. In his time happened a great Deluge, 
the history of which is thus described : The Deity, 
Cronos, appeared to him in a vision, and warned him 
that upon the 15 day of the month Daesius there 
would be a flood, by which mankind would be destroyed. 
He, therefore, enjoined him to write a history of the 
beginning, procedure and conclusion of all things; and 
to bury it in the City of the sun at Sippara; and to 
build a vessel, and take with him into it his friends and 
relations; and to convey on board everything necessary 
to sustain life, together with all the different animals, 
both birds and quadrupeds, and trust himself fearlessly 
to the deep. Having asked the Deity whither he was 
to sail, he was answered, ' To the Gods '; upon which 
he offered up a prayer for the good of mankind. He 



Traditions of the Deluge. 173 



CUNEIFORM ACCOUNT — CONCLUDED. 

[163] Let the lion come and minish mankind! 

[164] Instead of thy causing a flood, 

[165] Let the Leopard come and minish mankind! 

[166] Instead of thy causing a flood, 

[167] Let famine break out and [desolate] the land. 

[168] Instead of thy causing a flood, 

[169] Let pestilence {lit. Girra; i.e. the god of plague) come 

and slay mankind! 
[170] I divulged not the decision of the mighty gods; 
[171] (Someone) caused Atranasis to see visions, and so he 

heard the decision of the gods.' 
[172] Thereupon he took counsel with himself {or made up 

his mind) ; 
[173] Bel came on board the ship, 

[174] Seized my hand and led me up (out of the ship), 
[175] Let up my wife (and) made her kneel beside me; 
[176] He turned us face to face, and standing between us 

blessed us, (saying) : 
[177] ' Ere this, Nuh-napishtim and his wife shall be like us 
[178] But now Nuh-napishtim and his wife shall be like us 

gods! 
[179] Nuh-napishtim shall dwell far away (from men), at 

the mouth of the rivers!' 
[180] Then they took me, and made me dwell far awa]% at 

the mouth of the rivers.'* 



174 Traditions of the Deluge. 

then obeyed the Divine admonition, and built a vessel 
five stadia in length and two in breadth. Into this he 
put everything which he had prepared : and last of all 
conveyed into it his wife, his children and his friends. 

"After the Flood had been upon the earth, and was 
in time abated, Xisuthrus sent out birds from the vessel, 
which, not finding any food nor any place whereupon 
they might rest their feet, returned to him again. After 
an interval of some days he sent them forth a second 
time, and they now returned with their feet tinged with 
mud. He made a trial a third time with these birds, 
but they returned to him no more: from whence he 
judged that the surface of the earth had appeared above 
the waters. He, therefore, made an opening in the 
vessel, and upon looking out found that it was stranded 
upon the side of some mountain, upon which he imme- 
diately quitted it with his wife, his daughter and the 
pilot. Xisuthrus then paid his adoration to the earth, 
and, having constructed an altar, offered sacrifice to the 
gods, and, with those who had come out of the vessel 
with him, disappeared. 

" They, who remained within, finding that their com- 
panions did not return, quitted the vessel with many 
lamentations, and called continually on the name of 
Xisuthrus. Him they saw no more; but they could dis- 
tinguish his voice in the air, and could hear him admon- 
ish them to pay due regard to religion ; and likewise 
informed them that it was upon account of his piety 
that he was translated to live with the gods, that his 



Traditions of the Deluge. 175 

wife and daughter and the pilot had obtained the same 
honor. To this he added that they should return to 
Babylonia, and, as it was ordained, search for the 
writings at Sippara, which they were to "make known 
to all mankind ; moreover, that the place wherein they 
then were was the land of Armenia. 

" The rest having heard these words, offered sacri- 
fices to the gods, and, taking circuit, journeyed toward 
Babylonia. 

" The vessel being thus stranded in Armenia, some 
part of it yet remains in the Corcyraean mountains." 

By way of comparison, it is instructive to notice: — 

1. That the cuneiform inscription is from start to 
finish polytheistic (lines 3-17), whereas the narrative 
in Genesis is monotheistic. 

2. The cuneiform agrees with the biblical narrative 
in making the Deluge a divine punishment for the 
wickedness of the world (lines 5, 6). 

3. The names differ to a degree that is irreconcila- 
ble with our present knowledge. 

4. The dimensions of the ark as given in Genesis 
(vi. 15) are reasonable, while those of Berosus and the 
cuneiform tablets are unreasonable. According to 
Genesis, the ark was 300 cubits (562 1-2 feet) long, 
50 cubits (93 2-3 feet) wide, and 30 cubits (56 1-4) 
deep, which are the natural proportions for a ship of 
that size, being in fact very close to those of the great 



176 Traditions of the Deluge. 

steamers which are now constructed to cross the At- 
lantic. 2 The Celtic of the White Star line, built in 
1901, is 700 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 49 I -3 feet 
deep. The dimensions of the Great Eastern, built in 
1858 (692 feet long, 83 feet broad, and 58 feet deep), 
are still closer to those of the ark. The cuneiform tab- 
lets represent the length, width, and depth each as 140 
cubits (262 feet), (lines 22, 23, 38-41), the dimen- 
sions of an entirely unseaworthy structure. According 
to Berosus, it was five stadia (3,000 feet) and two 
stadia (1,200 feet) broad; while Origen represented 
it to be 135,000 feet (25 miles) long, and 3,750 feet 
(3-4 mile) wide. 3 

5. In the biblical account, nothing is introduced 
conflicting with the sublime conception of holiness and 
the peculiar combination of justice and mercy ascribed 
to God throughout the Bible, and illustrated in the 
general scheme of providential government manifest in 
the order of nature and in history ; while, in the cunei- 
form tablets, the Deluge is occasioned by a quarrel 
among the gods, and the few survivors escape, not by 
reason of a merciful plan, but by a mistake which 
aroused the anger of Bel (lines 146-150). 

6. In all the accounts, the ark is represented as 
floating up stream. According to Genesis, it was not, 
as is usually translated, on " Mount Ararat " (viii. 4), 



Traditions of the Deluge. 177 

but in the " mountains of Ararat," designating an in- 
definite region in Armenia upon which the ark rested ; 
according to the inscriptions, it was in Nizir (lines 
1 15-120), a region, in close proximity to Ararat, which 
is watered by the Zab and the Tornadus; while, accord- 
ing to Berosus, it was on the Corcyraean Mountains, 
included in the same indefinite area. In all three cases, 
its resting-place is in the direction of the headwaters of 
the Euphrates Valley, while the scene of the building 
is clearly laid in the lower part of the valley. 

7. Again, in the biblical narrative, the spread of 
the water floating the ark is represented to have been 
occasioned, not so much by the rain which fell, as by 
the breaking-up of " all the fountains of the great 
deep" (vii. 11), which very naturally describes phe- 
nomena connected with one of the extensive downward 
movements of the earth's crust with which geology has 
made us familiar. The sinking of the land below the 
level of the ocean is equivalent, in its effects, to the 
rising of the water above it, and is accurately expressed 
by the phrases uses in the sacred narrative. This ap- 
pears, not only in the language concerning the breaking- 
up of the great deep which describes the coming-on of 
the Flood, but also in the description of its termina- 
tion, in which it is said, that the " fountains of the 
deep .... were stopped, . . . and the waters returned 



178 Traditions of the Deluge. 

from off the earth continually (viii. 2, 3). Nothing is 
said of this in the other accounts. 

8. The cuneiform tablets agree in general with the 
two other accounts respecting the collecting of the ani- 
mals for preservation, but differ from Genesis in not 
mentioning the sevens of clean animals and in including 
others beside the family of the builder (lines 66-69). 

9. The cuneiform inscription is peculiar in provid- 
ing the structure with a mast, and putting it in charge 
of a pilot (lines 45, 70, 71). 

10. The accounts differ decidedly in the duration 
of the Flood, According to the ordinary interpretation 
of the biblical account, the Deluge continued a year 
and seventeen days; whereas, according to the cunei- 
form tablets, it lasted only fourteen days (lines 103- 
107, 117-122). 

11. All accounts agree in sending out birds; but, 
according to Genesis (viii. 7), a raven was first sent 
out, and then in succession two doves (viii. 7-12) ; 
while the cuneiform inscription mentions the dove and 
the raven in reverse order from Genesis, and adds a 
swallow (lines 121— 130). 

12. All accounts agree in the building of an altar 
and offering a sacrifice after leaving the ark. But the 
cuneiform inscription is overlain with a polytheistic 



Traditions of the Deluge. 179 

coloring: " The gods like flies swarmed about the sac- 
rifices " (lines 132-143). 

13. According to the biblical account, Noah sur- 
vived the Flood for a long time ; whereas Nuh-napishtim 
and his wife were at once deified and taken to heaven 
(lines 177-180). 

14. Both accounts agree in saying that the human 
race is not again to be destroyed by a flood (Gen. ix. 
11 ; lines 162-169). 

Close inspection of these peculiarities makes it evi- 
dent that the narrative in Genesis carries upon its face 
an appearance of reality which is not found in the 
other accounts. It is scarcely possible that the reason- 
able dimensions of the ark, its floating up stream, and 
the references to the breaking-up of the fountains of the 
great deep should have been hit upon by accident. It 
is in the highest degree improbable that correct state- 
ments of such unobvious facts should be due to the 
accident of legendary guesswork. At the same time, 
the duration of the Deluge, according to Genesis, af- 
fords opportunity for a gradual progress of events which 
best accords with scientific conceptions of geological 
movements. If, as the most probable interpretation 
would imply, the water began to recede after one hun- 
dred and fifty days from the beginning of the Flood, 
and fell fifteen cubits in seventy-four davs, that would 



180 Traditions of the Deluge. 

be only three and two-thirds inches per day, — a rate 
which would be imperceptible to an ordinary observer. 
Many years ago, a friend who had given very care- 
ful attention to all the details of the narrative, arrived 
at the conclusion that the basis of the biblical account 
is the log-book that was kept on the ark. His presen- 
tation of the case is scientific and convincing. We are 
happy to be permitted to transmit it in full. 4 

" The record says that Noah entered the ark the 
seventeenth day of the second month, and that it be- 
gan at once to rain, and rained forty days, and then 
ceased, on the twenty-seventh day of the third month. 
Before it stopped, the record gives these particulars: 
(i) the ark soon began to float; (2) the ark went 
floating on the waters driven by strong winds; (3) it 
touched bottom on the top of what later seemed to be 
the highest mountain in sight, on the seventeenth day 
of the seventh month. 

" If they had touched land somewhere and sailed 
from it, they could have had no assurance that it was 
the top of a high mountain; but if, on that day, the ark 
rested and remained on the top of a mountain, which, 
when they looked out later, seemed as high as any in 
sight, they would naturally say, ' The water was fifteen 
cubits above the mountains.' It would have been ab- 
surd for any later writer to pretend to tell just how 
deep the water was over the mountain top, unless from 
a record made there. There seems no other way for 



Traditions of the Deluge. 181 

any one to have known except as suggested, unless by 
direct revelation. It seems as though Gen. viii. 4 be- 
longs right after vii. 20, or that it should be translated, 
' The ark had rested. . . .' 

" We are then told that the waters prevailed one 
hundred and fifty days, and then began to go down. 
When do these one hundred and fifty days begin? 
At the beginning or the end of the forty days of rain? 
It is not certain. But the writer seems to teach that for 
forty days the waters were conquering the earth, and 
then completely triumphed over it for one hundred and 
fifty days more. Why did not the waters begin to 
abate soon after the rain ceased, instead of one hundred 
and fifty days or possibly one hundred and ten days 
later? To those in the ark the water seemed to keep 
rising three months and twenty days after it stopped 
raining, when they touched bottom on Ararat, and, if 
I read it rightly, it did not begin to abate till forty 
days later, and they would know at once when the wa- 
ter began to go down around the ark. When it did 
could only be known in the ark. They said that it 
was at the close of the one hundred and fifty days. 
Who could have got up such a legend years after? 

" But look again at our log-book (vii. 11), where the 
writer says not only that it rained, but that the foun- 
tains of the great deep were broken up. Evidently it 
seemed to him in the ark that not only the rain poured 
down, but that the sea came rushing in upon them, and 
he does not say till viii. 2, that the fountains of the 



1 82 Traditions of the Deluge. 

deep were stopped. Evidently it seemed to him that 
the incoming and outgoing deeps had more to do with 
the flood than the rain. If there had been no sinking 
and rising of the land to produce this phenomenon, it 
is absurd to suppose that the flood would not have 
begun to subside sooner than one hundred and fifty 
or even one hundred and ten days after the forty days 
of rain. But in the ark they would naturally record 
the exact date they felt the water beginning to lower 
around them. 

" Thirty- four days after the waters began to settle 
(seventy- four, if we count the one hundred and fifty 
from the beginning of the flood), on the first day of the 
tenth month, Noah records that the top of this moun- 
tain is above the water. The ark stands on dry land. 
It must have brought a joy never to be forgotten. 
Surely they would give the exact date thereof. So the 
water has settled just fifteen cubits. Forty days later, 
on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, he sent out 
a raven, and it returned not. On the eighteenth he 
sent out a dove, but it hastened back. On the twenty- 
fifth he sent it out again, and it brought back a fresh- 
picked olive leaf. On the second of the twelfth month 
he sent it out again, and it returned no more. Twenty- 
nine days later, on the first day of the year, perhaps his 
birthday, he for the first time removed the covering of 
the ark, and, looking in every direction, could see no 
body of water. How natural to take such a look and 
make such a record on that day! Quietly he waited 



Traditions of the Deluge. 183 

fifty-six days more. Then God, who had shut him in 
one year before, and had been there with him, opened 
the door, and said, ' Go forth.' 



NOAHS LOG-BOOK. 

NUMBER 
MONTH DAY OF DAYS 

2 17 All enter the ark, God shuts the door. 

Rains fall. Floods pour in from sea 40 

Ark floats. 

Ark sails swiftly. 

3 27 Rain stops. 

Floods keep pouring in and water 

rising no 

7 17 Ark touches bottom on top of high 

mountain and stays there. Waters 

stop rising. 

Water stationary 40 

8 27 Waters begin to settle. 

Settle fifteen cubits in 34 

10 1 Ark left on dry land. 

Waters continue to settle. Noah 

waits 40 

11 11 Noah sends out a raven. It returns not. 

Waters settle, Noah waits 7 

n iS Noah sends out a dove. It returns. 

Waters settle, Noah waits 7 

11 25 Noah sends out dove again. Dove 

brings an olive leaf just grown. 

Waters settle, Noah waits 7 

12 2 Noah sends out dove again. It re- 

turns not. 

Waters settle, Noah waits 29 

1 1 Noah removes covering, looks all 

around. 



184 Traditions of the Deluge. 



No water can be seen. 

Ground dries up. Noah waits 56 

God opens the door, and says, ' Go 

forth.' 

Total time of flood 37°- 



EXTENT OF THE DELUGE. 

We are not, however, compelled to narrow the inter- 
pretation of the biblical account down to the level of 
a hard-and-fast prosaic statement of dry detail. This 
whole episode in the history of the human race was 
introduced for the accomplishment of a moral purpose, 
which is enforced in the story by literary forms cal- 
culated to make the required impression, without paus- 
ing to gratify curiosity respecting all incidental details. 
The narrative portions are extremely condensed, appar- 
ently limiting themselves, as the log-book of a sea- 
captain would do, to the most clearly marked objective 
facts of observation, without effort to harmonize them 
either with themselves or with any comprehensive view 
of the universe. The expressed object of the Flood may 
therefore properly be permitted to limit the meaning of 
many of the general phrases introduced into the vivid 
account. This is so plain a principle of interpretation 
that it would seem to need for its substantiation little 
more than the bare statement. But, as many extremists 



Traditions of the Deluge. 185 

on both sides fail to appreciate the principle, a few 
words may profitably be devoted to its illustration. 

Long before the rise of geology and of the doubts 
which it has raised concerning the contemporaneous uni- 
versality of the Flood, it was noted by various learned 
commentators that the biblical account of the Deluge 
bore evidence that it was written by an eye-witness, and 
hence should be interpreted according to the natural 
limitations of such writing. In documents thus pre- 
pared, synecdoche has a preeminent place. The language 
describes what appears to the senses, and does not go 
beyond the phenomena which are visible. It does not 
try to settle minute extraneous questions. Nothing is 
more common than this figure of speech, where the part 
is put for the whole, and the horizon which limits our 
vision is spoken of as the horizon of the whole world. 
It falls to the lot of scientific interpreters to determine 
the extent to which this figure of speech legitimately 
modifies the literal interpretation of the text. 

All the universality required by the language de- 
scribing the Noachian Deluge Avould seem to be that 
which is necessary for the accomplishment of its os- 
tensible purpose, namely, such a destruction of the hu- 
man race that history could begin over again under 
new conditions of heredity and environment. Some of 
the general phrases used, therefore, may properly be 



1 86 Traditions of the Deluge. 

defined by the expressed object of the Divine judgment, 
while others have a natural boundary in the horizon 
which limits the writer's knowledge or observation. 
The objects of the Flood are all satisfied if the de- 
struction of the human race with the exception of 
Noah's family was fully accomplished. 5 

Respecting this point, it will be shown later, that 
it would be difficult to prove that, at the time of the 
Flood, the surviving members of the human race were 
not limited to a narrow area somewhere in the valley 
of the Euphrates. For example, Hugh Miller and 
others have plausibly urged that the human race before 
the Deluge had not spread very far from its original 
center, and that, owing to its great wickedness, it had 
not multiplied so as to secure any great density of pop- 
ulation even there. While this is possibly the case, we 
shall present another view, which will be supported by 
many recently discovered facts, pointing to a wide- 
spread destruction of antediluvian man in connection 
with recent great geological changes which have taken 
place since his appearance in the world. These consid- 
erations will prepare the 'way for regarding the Noa- 
chian Deluge as a catastrophe in Central Asia closing 
a series which had then possibly restricted the human 
race to that region. In this attempt, however, we arc 
not called upon to prove the Flood independent of his- 



Traditions of the Deluge. 187 

tory, but simply to remove objections to the credibility 
of the history raised from unwarranted scientific as- 
sumptions. 

Viewing the story of Genesis as the account of a 
really extensive, but comparatively limited, catastrophe 
in Central Asia, to which the survivors of the human 
race were then confined, the interpretation of the gen- 
eral phrases used may allowably be determined by the 
general limitation of the field which was within the 
reach of the writer's mental vision. Illustrations of 
this principle are familiar enough. When, for example, 
Job describes the thunder as being " sent forth under 
the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of 
the earth" (Job xxxvii. 3), we have no difficulty in 
understanding it as having reference simply to the 
whole visible horizon, for everybody uses similar ex- 
pressions with this implied limitation. When we say, 
" Everybody knows it," or " The whole country turned 
out to see him," we have no difficulty in explaining that 
these phrases, though absolutely general in their form, 
are yet much restricted in their meaning. 

For example, we are told in Deut. ii. 25, that the 
dread and fear of Israel should that day be put " upon 
the nations that are under the whole heaven." But the 
interpreter who should insist upon the absolute literality 
of such a phrase would prove not the point which he in- 



1 88 Traditions of the Deluge. 

tended to prove, but rather the narrowness of his own 
range of familiarity with literature. So when, in Gen. 
xli. 54 and 57, it is said that there was a famine " in 
all lands," or " over all the face of the earth," and that 
" all countries " came to Egypt to buy corn, it would 
be only an interpreter of a very narrow acquaintance 
with literature who should insist that the language was 
literal, and that the irrigated plains of Babylonia were 
as dependent upon Egypt as were the hills of Judaea. 
So, also, when the writer of the book of Kings says 
that Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for 
riches, and that all the earth sought to hear his wisdom ; 
and when the Saviour says that the Queen of Sheba 
came " from the uttermost parts of the earth," he 
would be a very narrow and ill-informed interpreter 
who should insist upon the strict literality of the 
words. In Acts ii. 25, we are told that there were 
present in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost people 
" out of every nation under heaven," but when the 
enumeration is made it includes only the region extend- 
ing from Italy to the Persian Gulf, over which the 
Jews are known to have spread. When Caesar is said 
to have taxed " all the world," and we say that it 
means all the Roman Empire, we should not be con- 
strued to assert that the writer supposed there were no 
outlying provinces yet unsubdued by the Roman power. 



Traditions of the Deluge. 189 

And so, when Paul (in 58 a.d.) asserts that the faith 
of the church at Rome was already " spoken of through- 
out the whole cosmos," it would be supremely puerile 
to insist upon the bare literal interpretation of the 
words. 

In accordance with this principle of interpretation, 
we are permitted to regard the universal statements 
concerning the Flood as being the language of appear- 
ance such as would present itself to eye-witnesses of 
the catastrophe, and limited in its general results to 
the main purpose for which it came. So that " all the 
mountains and hills under the whole heavens " may 
naturally mean all those within the horizon of the 
writer's vision, or within reach of his knowledge, or 
within the circle which was then inhabited by man. 

THE DATE OF THE FLOOD. 

Before entering upon the direct presentation of the 
facts bearing upon the question in hand, it will be best 
to prepare the way for answering one other objection, 
which may arise on the score of chronology. The pres- 
ent discussion will proceed upon the assumption that the 
date of the Flood may be placed considerably earlier 
than that given by the ordinary chronology as worked 
out by Archbishop Usher, or, indeed, as it would be 
obtained by considering merely the prima facie evidence 



190 Traditions of the Deluge. 

in the first chapters of Genesis. But a careful study 
of the subject will show that the genealogical tables in 
the fifth and eleventh chapters are not designed to give 
chronological data, but merely to indicate lines of de- 
scent. The character of these tables has been so fully 
discussed by the late Professor William Henry Green, 
that we may content ourselves with a brief summary of 
his arguments, referring to the elaborate article itself 
for the fuller substantiation of the conclusions ar- 
rived at. 7 

In the genealogies in the fifth chapter of Genesis, 
ten generations are mentioned between Adam and 
Noah, and the age of the parent at the time of the 
birth of the son who is next in the chain is in each case 
given; while in the eleventh chapter ten more gener- 
ations between Noah and Abraham are mentioned in 
the same manner; — that is, the age of the parent at 
the birth of each successive son is given in definite fig- 
ures ; so that, by adding together these sums to the date 
of Abraham (which is 191 8 B.C.), as Archbishop Usher 
did, we get the dates which are found in the margins of 
many of our English Bibles, namely, of the creation of 
man, 4004 years B.C. ; and of the Flood, 2348 B.C. 
Upon the face of it, it looks as though there could be 
here no way of avoiding conflict between a clear Bible 
statement and the result of modern investigations in 



Traditions of the Deluge. igi 

geology and archaeology, which give a much higher 
antiquity to man and to the civilization in Egypt and 
Babylonia; for these chronological data in the gene- 
alogical tables seem to be linked together in such a way 
that there is no lengthening the chain without alto- 
gether destroying its continuity. 

Close study of the subject, however, will convince 
any one that even the linked genealogical tables of these 
chapters were not intended by the writer, nor under- 
stood by his readers, to teach a definite chronology, but 
are inserted simply to show lines of descent, in which 
any number of intermediate links may be omitted with- 
out interfering with the purpose of the tables. This 
conclusion is based, not upon mere speculative reasons, 
or the necessity of making out a case, but upon the 
manifest usage of the sacred writers in numerous other 
places, and upon a careful consideration of the tables 
themselves. 

As one of the most instructive examples, we may 
turn our attention to the first chapter of Matthew, 
where, in the first verse, Christ is called in the same 
breath " the son of David " and " the son of Abraham," 
after which the complete list is seemingly given in 
close column, extending from Abraham down. But it 
is noticeable that the names are divided into three 
groups of fourteen each. To bring them within the 



192 Traditions of the Deluge. 

limits of these exact numbers, however, we find that 
three names are omitted in verse 8. It is said that 
" Joram begat Ozias " (Uzziah), where we know 
from the book of Kings that three names have been 
omitted — Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah; while again, 
in verse n, Jehoiakim is omitted after Josiah. 

What now is it reasonable to conclude from these 
passages? Shall we say that the writer of this chapter 
did not know of the existence of those links which he 
dropped out? Certainly not, for this is the Gospel that 
was written by a Hebrew, and both he and his readers 
had ready access to, and were devoted believers in, 
the Old Testament, and they were surrounded by Jew- 
ish opponents who would readily find fault with any 
serious misuse of it. The only explanation, therefore, is 
that all were so familiar with the use of genealogies to 
indicate simply lines of descent, without any reference 
to chronology, that nobody thought of raising any 
question concerning such use. Interpreters, therefore, 
should learn from this passage to be on their guard 
against making chronological use of similar tables in 
other portions of Jewish literature. 

Turning to the Old Testament itself, we notice, 
among others, one of the clearest examples in i Chron. 
xxvi. 24, where we read that " Shebuel the son of Ger- 
shom, the son of Moses, was ruler over the treasures," 



Traditions of the Deluge. 193 

and again in 1 Chron. xxiii. 15, 16, we read that " the 
sons of Moses were Gershom and Eliezer. Of the 
sons of Gershom Shebuel was the chief." But Shebuel 
was appointed over the treasury by David four hun- 
dred years after the time of Moses ; so that eight or ten 
generations must have intervened between Gershom 
and Shebuel. Still, notwithstanding this, the identical 
term is used twice over, in expressing the relation be- 
tween Moses and Gershom, that is used in expressing 
that between Gershom and Shebuel. Again, in Ezra 
vii. 1-5, the writer of this book, doubtless with full 
knowledge of what was written in the Chronicles be- 
fore him, gives Ezra's genealogy in the line of Aaron, 
but in the table skips from Meraioth to Azariah, omit- 
ting six names which appear in the parallel passage in 
1 Chron. vi. 3-14. Here, again, it would be absurd to 
suppose that such omissions were made through ignor- 
ance, since they created no disturbance in the minds of 
the Jews in general who read them. They simply illus- 
trate what were the familiar usages of speech among 
the Jews. 

And so we might go on enumerating a dozen other 
instances in which similar free use is made of gene- 
alogical tables where it is clear that the chronological 
questions connected with them are not taken into ac- 
count in the least. The condensation of genealogical 



ig4 Traditions of the Deluge. 

tables was with the Jews the rule, and not the excep- 
tion. Manifestly they were used as we may use the 
phrase " sons of the Pilgrims," where everything but 
the line of descent is left out of view. Until, with Pro- 
fessor Green, one takes pains to go through the long 
list of genealogies abbreviated in the same manner in 
the Old Testament, he cannot have any proper con- 
ception of how frequent this use is, and how clear the 
point we are making appears from the facts. 

In Professor Green's discussion he goes on further 
to show, that not only is there no difficulty in suppos- 
ing that the genealogical tables in Gen. v. and xi. are 
abbreviated, but that there are many special reasons in 
the tables themselves and in the contexts in which they 
occur, to show that this is really the case. In the first 
place, a strict literal interpretation of the first genealog- 
ical table (v. 3) might naturally lead us to infer that 
Seth was Adam's first child. The only way in which 
we find out that he was not, is from the history of 
Cain and Abel and the mention of a wife to Cain in the 
preceding chapter. 

Secondly, no chronology is ever deduced from these 
tables by the sacred writers. " There is no computa- 
tion anywhere in the Scriptures of the time that 
elapsed from the creation or from the Deluge, as there 
is from the descent into Egypt to the Exodus (Ex. xii. 



Traditions of the Deluge. 1^5 

40), or from the Exodus to the building of the temple 
(1 Kings vi. 1)." At the same time, the prominence 
given to the length of the individual lives after the 
birth of the son mentioned shows that something else 
than chronology was what the writer wished to impress 
upon the reader. 

Thirdly, in the convincing words of Professor 
Green, — 

" The structure of the genealogies in Gen. v. and xi. 
also favors the belief that they do not register all the 
names in these respective lines of descent. Their reg- 
ularity seems to indicate intentional arrangement. 
Each genealogy includes ten names, Noah being the 
tenth from Adam, and Terah the tenth from Noah. 
And each ends with a father having three sons, as is 
likewise the case with the Cainite genealogy (iv. 17- 
22). The Sethite genealogy (chap, v.) culminates in 
its seventh member, Enoch, who ' walked with God, 
and he was not, for God took him.' The Cainite gene- 
alogy also culminates in its seventh member, Lamech, 
with his polygamy, bloody revenge, and boastful arro- 
gance. The genealogy descending from Shem divides 
evenly at its fifth member, Peleg ; ' and in his days was 
the earth divided.' Now as the adjustment of the gene- 
alogy in Matthew i. into three periods of fourteen gen- 
erations each, is brought about by dropping the requisite 
number of names, it seems in the highest degree prob- 
able that the symmetry of these primitive genealogies 



196 Traditions of the Deluge. 

is artificial rather than natural. It is much more likely 
that this definite number of names fitting into a regular 
scheme has been selected as sufficiently representing the 
periods to which they belong, than that all these strik- 
ing numerical coincidences should have happened to 
occur in these successive instances." 

" The notion of basing a chronological computation 
upon these genealogies is, therefore, a fundamental mis- 
take. It is putting them to a purpose that they were 
not designed to subserve, and to which from the method 
of their construction they were not adapted. But, when 
it is said, for example, that ' Enosh lived ninety years 
and begat Kenan,' the well-established usage of the 
word ' begat ' makes his statement equally true and 
equally accordant with analogy, whether Kenan was 
an immediate or remote descendant of Enosh; whether 
Kenan was himself born, when Enosh was ninety years 
of age, or one was born from whom Kenan sprang." 

In other words, Kenan may simply have been a remote 
descendant of the branch which put off from the line 
of Enosh in the ninetieth year. 

"We conclude, therefore [says Professor Green], 
that the Scriptures furnish no data for a chronological 
computation prior to the life of Abraham; and that 
the Mosaic records do not fix and were not intended to 
fix the precise date either of the Flood or of the creation 
of the world." 

" If, therefore [he goes on to say], any really trust- 
worthy data can be gathered from any source whatever, 



Traditions of the Deluge. 197 

which can be brought into comparison with these gene- 
alogies for the sake of determining the question, 
whether they have noted every link in the chain of de- 
scent, or whether, as in other manifest instances, links 
have been omitted, such data should be welcomed and 
the comparison fearlessly made. Science would simply 
perform the office, in this instance, which information 
gathered from other parts of Scripture is unhesitatingly 
allowed to do in regard to those genealogies previously 
examined." 

Whereupon he proceeds to give reasons, from archae- 
ology and from the narrative in Genesis itself, going to 
show that the Flood was much earlier than would ap- 
pear from the chronology ordinarily obtained from the 
scriptural language. 

After this much of attention to preliminary ques- 
tions relating to the proper understanding of the bib- 
lical account, we will turn, in following chapters, to 
consider the vast amount of evidence which has recently 
come to light showing ( 1 ) that there has been a period 
of instability of the earth's crust extending down to 
comparatively recent times, which, from a scientific 
point of view, renders the scriptural account of the 
Flood easily credible; (2) that some such wide-spread 
catastrophe has actually occurred since the advent of 
man. 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SCIENTIFIC CREDIBILITY OF THE DELUGE. 

The main evidence of the Noachian Deluge must 
always be historical ; but it is the prerogative of science 
to consider the intrinsic credibility of the event, and so 
to remove unwarranted prejudicial bias. With this in 
view, we will limit ourselves, in the present chapter, to 
facts bearing upon the reasonable credibility of the sup- 
position, that, since man came into the world, there may 
have been changes of land-level of sufficient extent and 
rapidity to destroy the human race, and fairly to meet 
the demands of the biblical narrative when properly 
interpreted. The adequate discussion of this point calls 
for a somewhat comprehensive survey of geological the- 
ories relating to the general stability of land-levels, and 
of the causes of the extensive changes of level which all 
admit to have taken place. The first of these has to do 
with the general question of uniformity in the action 
of geological forces. It will be in place, therefore, at 
the outset, to adduce the considerations which empha- 
size the fact that the stability of the earth's crust is by 
no means a constant quantity throughout all time. 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 199 

GEOLOGICAL FORCES ARE FAR FROM UNIFORM IN 
THEIR ACTIVITY. 

Geologists may be roughly divided into three classes, 
— Catastrophists, Uniformitarians, and Evolutionists. 
The Catastrophists hold that nearly all the changes in 
the earth's surface have taken place with great rapidity. 
In their view, the species which succeed each other in 
the geological strata Were, each and all, fresh creations. 
At each geological epoch, according to the Catastro- 
phists, the board was swept clean, and a new record 
spread upon its surface. The mountains were upheaved 
by a single stroke of divine power, and the foundations 
of the great deep were broken up with equal suddenness. 
A hundred years ago the Catastrophists held the field 
against all opponents. Indeed, their theories were 
scarcely questioned by anybody. 

But, largely through the influence of Sir Charles 
Lyell, in the publication of his " Principles of Geology " 
in 1830, the Catastrophists were in due time almost 
entirely superseded by the Uniformitarians. These hold 
that the present is a perfect measure of the past, — that 
all the vast geological changes to which the earth's crust 
bears witness, were effected by the slow processes which 
are now going on. With this view, the Uniformita- 
rians felt free, and were indeed compelled, to make 
unlimited drafts upon the bank of time, and allot hun- 



200 Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 

dreds of millions of years to a single geological period, 
as though eternity alone limited the history of the 
earth's changes. In one of Darwin's famous calcula- 
tions, 306,662,400 years is spoken of as " a mere trifle " 
of geologic time. 1 

The difference between these two theories has been 
well set forth in the saying, that " the Catastrophists 
are prodigal of force, and parsimonious of time; while 
the Uniformitarians are parsimonious of force, and 
prodigal of time." Indeed, the leading Uniformitarians 
were so parsimonious of force that they were aptly char- 
acterized as " the homoeopathic school of dynamics." 

The more attentive study of the facts, and the more 
rational attitude of mind, which characterize the open- 
ing of the twentieth century, are bringing into promi- 
nence the great truth which lies between these two 
extremes. In the light of these, it is seen that the 
processes of nature cannot be comprehended under 
either of the foregoing theories. There is, in fact, no 
such thing as uniformity in nature. On the contrary, 
nature is a continuous series of changes the rate of 
which is far from uniform. Sometimes these changes 
proceed for a long period at a rate so slow that its steps 
seem almost infinitesimal, while at other times they 
go forward with leaps and bounds. The true theory 
is that of Evolution. There is continuity in the geolog- 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 201 

ical progression, but not uniformity: catastrophes are 
by no means unknown in nature. 2 

The illustrations of this principle are so numerous 
and familiar that it seems strange that it should ever 
have been overlooked. In every great movement, there 
is a last straw which " breaks the camel's back " and 
produces visible results which are out of all proportion 
to what had before been apparent. The boiler remains 
intact under increasing steam pressure up to a certain 
point, before which the successive addition of pound 
after pound of pressure produces no apparent change 
in the phenomena; but, upon the addition of another 
pound's pressure, it bursts into a thousand fragments, 
and shatters everything with which it comes in con- 
tact. Or, again, the bow gradually bends to every 
successive increase in the strain to which it is subjected 
up to a certain point, when it suddenly snaps in the 
archer's hands, and becomes a useless piece of wood. 
In either case, mathematicians might have predicted 
the results, if the nature of the forces involved had 
been fully known. But empirical philosophy which 
made the past and the observed narrow present a full 
measure of the future, would have been completely at 
fault in its predictions. 

Turning to greater things for illustration, we may 
note that, previous to the first century of our era, the 



202 Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 

fires of Vesuvius had been so long quiescent that all 
memory of their former activity had been erased from 
the consciousness of mankind. The slopes of the ex- 
tinct crater were covered with vineyards and villas. 
The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were 
thronged with a pleasure-seeking crowd, all of whom 
were " Uniformitarians," believing that " from the be- 
ginning of the world all things had remained as they 
were," and that the present was a full measure of the 
future. But, in the year 63, suddenly this feeling of 
security was shocked by an earthquake which shook 
down palatial residences and prostrated defensive walls 
which from time immemorial had been the pride of 
Southern Italy. In the twinkling of an eye, the press- 
ure of the accumulating gases beneath had passed the 
danger-point, and produced a catastrophe of the most 
tragic order. 

But even this was not sufficient to disturb the false 
security. Roman capital and Roman artists poured 
into the desolated city, and in a decade rebuilt it on a 
scale of still more magnificent splendor. In freshly 
adorned palaces the philosopher retired to the quiet of 
these unrivaled pleasure-resorts, to ponder upon themes 
which were out of place amid the every-day affairs of 
the great capital on the Tiber; while the satirical poet 
built his luxurious residence close by, from which to 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 203 

launch his keen shafts of ridicule; and the courtesan, 
in a neighboring street, shamelessly flaunted the sign of 
her nefarious enticements. Thus, literally, a whole 
city full of pleasure-seekers was dancing on the edge 
of a volcano. 

The end was such as to make an impression which 
few occurrences in history have done. This time the 
struggling vapors beneath found relief, not in an earth- 
quake, but in dense showers of volcanic dust and in 
streams of lava. Herculaneum was hermetically sealed 
by a broad sheet of basalt. Pompeii was buried be- 
neath showers of dust and ashes. Moistened by the 
copious rain which accompanied the eruption, the fine 
sediment flowed into the parlors and bedrooms and 
workshops and prison-cells, and inclosed the inmates, 
making casts of them in all the lifelike attitudes in 
which they were found. Thus, for more than a thou- 
sand years, these cities lay hid from view, while the 
gardens and vineyards of successive generations flour- 
ished on the rich soil above the houses of Pompeii, and 
chariots rumbled unceasingly on the natural pavement 
made by the incasing sheet of lava which covered the 
streets of Herculaneum. During much of this period, 
Vesuvius was quiescent, and, for a while, Spartacus, 
with his band of robbers, found a ready-made natural 
fortress in the crater of this historic volcano. 



204 Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 

More recently, the tragic events in Martinique and 
California and Chili have emphasized the same great 
truth. To be a " Uniformitarian " in presence of such 
facts requires a peculiar definition of uniformity. 

But to measure the small demands made on our cre- 
dulity by the story of the Flood, we do well to consider 
attentively the fact that 

ALL GEOLOGICAL MOVEMENTS ARE COMPARA- 
TIVELY SLIGHT. 

It is almost impossible not to have an exaggerated 
idea of the relative greatness of the changes of level in 
the earth's surface which are brought to light by geo- 
logic investigation. When we read of the actual 
changes of level which have taken place since the be- 
ginning of the Tertiary period, for example, they seem 
enormous. Nearly all the high mountains of the world 
are the result of that period of land elevation. The 
Pyrenees, the Alps, the Himalayas, the Andes, and the 
Rocky Mountains, all bear upon their summits deposits 
of sea-shells belonging to this most recent geological 
epoch. Since the middle of the Tertiary period, all 
these mountains have been raised to their present 
heights from the level of the sea. Here is brought to 
view an elevation of land more than two miles in ver- 
tical extent. Nor was the elevation confined to the 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 205 

narrow mountain-chains. The vast plateaus of Cen- 
tral Asia shared in the movement; while the extensive 
western plains of the United States from the Missis- 
sipi River to the Pacific Ocean then received most of 
their elevation. There is abundant evidence, also, that 
Northeastern America and Northwestern Europe, at 
the close of that period, stood from two thousand to 
three thousand feet higher than they do now. Further- 
more, this elevation at the close of the Tertiary period, 
which was coincident with the coming-on of the Gla- 
cial epoch, soon gave place to a subsidence which car- 
ried the land much below its present level. At the 
close of the Glacial epoch, the land at Montreal was 
six hundred feet lower than it is now, and farther north 
one thousand feet lower. Deserted post-glacial sea- 
beaches abound in the Scandinavian peninsula up to 
one thousand feet above present sea-level. 3 

But great as these changes of level in the earth's crust 
have actually been, they are relatively very small; so 
that one may well wonder how the delicate equilibrium 
between land and sea which is essential to civilization, 
and indeed to life, is secured. The earth is a sphere 
eight thousand miles in diameter. A mountain-chain 
four miles high produces only a roughness on the sur- 
face one-two-thousandth part of this; while, in the 
vicinity of Denver, the plateau, which there reaches the 



206 Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 

elevation of about a mile, produces a swelling of the 
circumference amounting to only one-eight-thousandth 
of the diameter. Were we to transfer these inequali- 
ties to a globe ten feet in diameter, — an object, by the 
way, which would leave little space in a moderate-sized 
sitting-room, — the roughness of the surface would be 
hardly appreciable: the plains of Denver would be 
represented by a bulging in the surface of only about 
one-sixty-sixth of an inch, or the thickness of a moder- 
ately thin sheet of paper; while, if these irregularities 
were represented to scale on a globe the size of a large 
apple, they would become indiscernible, except with a 
microscope. The desiccation of an apple does not have 
to go far to produce wrinkles of that size. The irregu- 
larities on the earth's surface do not indicate any greater 
relative changes than this in its interior, or any rela- 
tively greater exertion of the forces stored within it. 

In cheap derision of the biblical Deluge, we often 
hear it said, that there is not water enough in existence 
to cover the tops of the highest mountains. This flip- 
pant remark overlooks the fact that the biblical account, 
as already remarked, represents the Flood as caused not 
so much by the rising of the water, as by the sinking of 
the land. It says that all the fountains of the great 
deep were broken up. Now, if all the land in the world 
should sink below the level of the sea, it would raise 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 207 

the water-level only a few hundred feet; whereas, the 
tide regularly rises seventy feet in the Bay of Fundy. 
The abstraction of the water from the ocean during the 
Glacial epoch to be locked up in ice over the northern 
hemisphere, and its subsequent return on the melting of 
the ice at the close of the epoch, produced changes in 
the ocean level half as great as Noah's flood would 
have done, on the most literal interpretation of the ac- 
count. 

That we may not overestimate the significance of 
the present relative stability of the earth's crust, it is 
in place to consider more in detail the known extent of 

SOME RECENT GREAT GEOLOGICAL CHANGES. 

Fortunately, the balance of geological forces is so 
delicate and perfect that most of the changes on the 
earth's surface take place slowly. Otherwise it would 
have been impossible for the higher forms of life to have 
maintained their existence. But there are many facts 
which bear indubitable witness to recent geological 
movements of great relative rapidity. Among these 
may be enumerated many lake basins occupying depres- 
sions in the earth's surface. Of them we will for the 
present speak of only three which have recently come 
under personal observation, namely, Lake Baikal, and 
the Aral and Dead seas. 



208 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 



Lake Baikal occupies a north-and-south cleft in the 
broad belt of elevated table-land which extends from 
Central Asia into Northeastern Siberia. It is about 





r 




% Iff 


S--~ 


0£ 








S-^ 





Map of Lake Baikal. 



four hundred miles long and thirty wide. Its elevation 
is 1,561 feet above the sea, but the mountains on either 
side rise to a height of from four thousand to seven 
thousand feet. The mountain barrier on the west, 
however, is narrow, and penetrated by a single trans- 
verse cleft, through which the Angara River carries the 
surplus water of the vast drainage basin emptying into 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 



209 



the lake. But, unlike the other rivers mentioned, this 
has by no means kept pace in erosion with the elevation 
of the barrier. It still has much to do before it obliter- 





3D MILES 




E:ake1i 


BAIKAL 




fHHa ° 


LU 




Sgwwjl :■;.". .-.;:: ".".JO 


U_ :::::::::::::.:Mj-. 




Cross Section Showing the Depth of the Southern 
Part of the Lake. 



ates the rapids which separate the lake from the more 
leisurely current of the river fifty miles below, at 
Irkutsk. 

Still further, the present depth of the lake is signifl- 



2io Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 

cant. While the northern portion is shallow, being 
only a few hundred feet deep, the southern portion 
runs down to a depth of 4,186 feet, or nearly three 
thousand feet below sea-level. The significance of these 
facts is enhanced by those relating to its drainage basin. 
This covers an area of about two hundred thousand 
square miles, and is served by the Selenga, the Khilok, 
the Uda, and the Upper Angara (rivers of the first or- 
der), besides numerous smaller streams. These all come 
down from the surrounding high granitic table-lands 
with a gradient which makes their erosive power exces- 
sively large. And they are all characterized by open 
eroded channels from one mile to several miles broad, 
with a depth of one or two thousand feet. Evidently 
the amount of sediment brought down has been enor- 
mous, — enough to have filled the bed of the lake many 
times over. The most of this sediment was formerly 
carried past the area now occupied by Lake Baikal, and, 
consolidated into rock, forms the extensive plains and 
the mountain. border surrounding the city of Irkutsk. 
The great depth of the lake, therefore, and indeed its 
existence at all, indicates that the subsidence of its 
bottom is an event of recent geological occurrence. 

Its recentness may be appreciated by the following 
brief calculation : The Selenga River, emptying into 
Lake Baikal from the east about one hundred miles 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 211 

from the south end, drains, as we have said, an area of 
two hundred thousand square miles. The mountainous 
plateau in which this vast river system rises is fully 
three thousand feet higher than the surface of Lake 
Baikal, giving such a gradient to the streams that their 
erosive activity would be considerably above that of 
average rivers. Assuming, however, that it is rela- 
tively the same as that in the Mississippi basin, we shall 
be able to make an approximate calculation which can- 
not be very far from the truth. 4 

By long and careful experiments conducted by Hum- 
phreys and Abbott for the United States Government, 
it is ascertained that the sediment, consisting of gravel, 
sand, and mud, which is carried by the Mississippi 
River past New Orleans is sufficient in quantity to re- 
move one foot of material from the whole Mississippi 
basin, stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Al- 
leghenies, in 4,566 years. All this material is being de- 
posited along the margin of the delta which the river 
is pushing out into the Gulf of Mexico. The annual 
amount of solid material carried out by the river is 
estimated by Dana to equal a mass one mile square and 
twenty-seven feet thick. 

In the more mountainous region of Northern Italy, 
the river Po is bringing sediment down to the head of 
the Adriatic Sea at a rate which would remove a foot 



212 Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 

of material from its entire drainage basin once in every 
seven hundred years. As a striking tangible evidence 
of the rapidity of this erosion, and the consequent accu- 
mulation of material about the mouth of the river, it is 
worthy of note that the city of Adria, which was at 
an early period a port of such importance and celebrity 
as to give name to the sea on which it stood, is now six- 
teen miles inland. 

But, taking even the lower rate of the Mississippi as 
the standard for that of the Selenga River, we shall 
arrive at results which are sufficiently instructive and 
even startling. All the sediment brought down by the 
river is deposited in the southern quarter of Lake 
Baikal. It is impossible to believe that the average 
depth of this basin was ever more than one-half mile. 
Taking the length of the southern quarter of the lake 
basin to be one hundred miles, and its average width 
thirty miles, which are both liberal allowances, we 
should have fifteen hundred cubic miles of space to be 
filled. But, on the basis of the calculated erosion from 
the drainage area of the Selenga River of one foot in 
five thousand years, forty cubic miles of sediment 
would, in round numbers, be deposited in the lake 
every five thousand years. 

The whole portion of the basin, therefore, in which 
the deposit is made, would be filled up by the sediment 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 213 

in 187,500 years. But so little has the delta encroached 
upon the lake, that it is certainly not one-fifth full, and 
probably not one-tenth full. The extensive geological 
changes, therefore, which have produced this great ba- 
sin cannot have taken place more than 40,000 years 
ago, and probably not 20,000 years ago, and may 
have been even considerably later. Geologically, the 
time of its formation was during the latter part of the 
Tertiary or the beginning of the Glacial epoch. Alto- 
gether this is one of the most striking and convincing 
evidences heretofore adduced of the recency of some of 
the most extensive geological changes which the world 
has ever witnessed, while it is difficult to see any way 
in which the figures can be very greatly enlarged. 

The great Aral-Caspian depression is another of 
those vast inclosed basins bearing unmistakable evi- 
dence of recent rapid geological changes in the earth's 
surface. In this case a reg'on nearly as large as the 
whole United States is without any outlet to the ocean, 
and is subject to an evaporation just equal to the rain- 
fall. The surface is dotted with dried-up lake basins 
of greater or lesser size, most of which contain salt 
beds at their bottoms. Under these conditions one 
would naturally expect to find the water of the Aral 
and Caspian seas to be, like that of the Dead Sea and 



214 Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 

Great Salt Lake, salter than the ocean. On the con- 
trary, the. Caspian Sea is only one-third as salt as the 
ocean, and the water of the Aral Sea is so nearly fresh 
that animals on the islands freely drink it. The expla- 
nation is that the oceanic outlet has only recently ceased 
to exist. Previously the great rivers flowing into these 
basins had brought in so much fresh water that an 
oceanic outlet was a necessity, and the seas were partly 
freshened. The changes which have diminished the 
rainfall and increased the evaporation have been so re- 
cent that there has not been time for the seas to become 
saturated with salt, like most inclosed lakes. All the 
rivers with their modicum of salt are continually run- 
ning into these seas, yet their waters are not saturated. 
The sure inference is that the time during which these 
agencies have been acting is narrowly limited. The 
desiccation of this vast region is so recent that the time 
which has since elapsed must be estimated in thousands, 
or certainly in tens of thousands, rather than in hun- 
dreds of thousands, of years. 

This conclusion is supported, also, by the geological 
evidences that, up to recent times, a vast inland sea 
as large as the Mediterranean occupied the interior ba- 
sin of Central Asia known as the Desert of Gobi, 
around which extensive shore-line deposits of sedimen- 
tary material are reported in various places. More- 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 215 

over, the early Chinese records refer to this sea, under 
the name of Han Hai, as still covering an extensive 
area within the historic period. Lob Nor is, at the 
present time, the sole remnant of this body of water, 
indicating a recent period of greater rainfall through- 
out Asia. 5 

In case of the Dead Sea, we have a depression whose 
surface is thirteen hundred feet, and its bottom twenty- 
six hundred feet, lower than the surface of the Medi- 
terranean, forty miles away. But the isolation has 
been so long continued that the water of the Dead Sea 
is saturated with salts of every kind. Evidence of the 
recentness of the formation of this deep basin is, how- 
ever, unmistakable. The Jordan, though clear when 
issuing from Lake Galilee, becomes, before reaching 
the Dead Sea, one of the muddiest of rivers ; while 
numerous wadi.es of large extent, which are periodically 
gorged with water, making them eroding and trans- 
porting agencies of the most efficient kind, come down 
into it from the highlands on either side. For example, 
the bed of Wady Zuweirah, which enters the Dead 
Sea just north of Jebel Usdum, having a width of 
about one thousand feet, is covered with boulders a 
foot and more in diameter, which have been rolled some 
distance over a nearly level plain. During most of the 



216 Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 

year, there is scarcely any water* in the channel. But 
evidently there are periodical floods of great violence, 
and it is they that accomplish most of the erosion of 
the highlands, and corresponding sedimentation of the 
lake basins in which they terminate. Why, then, has 
not the present basin of the Dead Sea been filled up 
with sediment? Evidently because the bottom of the 
lake has fallen out in recent geological times. 

From the size of the drainage basin, as compared 
with that of the Dead Sea itself, and from the rate at 
which sediment is being carried into the sea, it will ap- 
pear, upon calculation, that fifty thousand years is a 
longer period than has probably elapsed since the ex- 
treme depression of the Dead Sea was formed. 6 Evi- 
dently it is a region in which geological forces have 
been active with enormous intensity in comparatively 
recent times. 

THE LATEST GEOLOGICAL EPOCH, ONE OF GREAT 
CHANGES OF LEVEL. 

The history of the three lake basins just described 
might have been introduced under this head. But it 
will be in point to adduce facts of a more specific char- 
acter. To this end the entire history of the Glacial 
epoch is in place. The Glacial epoch, both in Europe 
and America, was coincident with, if not caused by, 



Scientific .Credibility of the Deluge. 217 

an extensive continental elevation of the land through- 
out the glaciated region. Just before the Glacial epoch, 
as already said, the land in a large part of the northern 
portion of North America stood from two thousand to 
three thousand feet higher than its present level. The 
evidence of this is abundant on every hand. 7 Both the 
eastern and the western shores of the United States 
and Canada are bordered by a shelf of shallow water, 
which, at distances varying from a few miles to a 
hundred miles or more, suddenly breaks off into much 
greater depths. The depth of the water on this shelf 
is less than six hundred feet, while, beyond, it suddenly 
becomes several thousand feet deep. Now, there is 
indubitable evidence that, at the close of the Tertiary 
period, this shelf was dry land, standing at such an ele- 
vation that the great rivers coming down from the in- 
terior cut channels through it hundreds of feet, and in 
some cases thousands of feet, in depth. These sub- 
merged drainage channels are brought to our knowl- 
edge by the sounding-line of the Coast Survey. The 
Hudson River then found its way to deep water south 
of New York through a canon more than one thousand 
feet deep, extending to its mouth between precipitous' 
cliffs nearly one hundred miles beyond Sandy Hook. 
The Delaware and Susquehanna rivers found similar 
outlets through canons extending far out beyond Dela- 



21 8 Scientific Credibility of the Deluge. 

ware and Chesapeake bays; while the St. Lawrence 
extended in its lower course several hundred miles 
through a deep-cut channel in dry land where now we 
find the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Banks of New- 
foundland. Similar channels intersect the shelf which 
borders the Pacific Ocean on the coast of California, 
Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. At the 
same time, numerous borings for oil have brought to 
light in Central New York, in Ohio, Indiana, and Illi- 
nois, many eroded channels in the rocks, now filled with 
glacial debris, which immediately before that epoch 
conducted away the drainage of the interior at a depth 
considerably below that of the present sea-level. 

To the same effect is the evidence from Northwestern 
Europe. On the approach of the Glacial epoch, -the 
North Sea between England and Scandinavia, which is 
now everywhere very shallow, was all dry land, inter- 
sected only by the channel of a mighty stream which 
conducted away to the far north the combined floods 
of the Rhine, the Weser, and the Elbe, augmented by 
all the water which issued from the area of the Baltic 
and of the eastern watershed of Great Britain. The 
fiords of Norway then increased their grandeur by the 
addition of many hundred feet to the present height of 
their cliffs above the water. To the south, this pre- 
glacial continental elevation was sufficient to join Africa 



Scientific Credibility of the Deluge 



219 



to Europe across the middle part of the Mediterranean, 
and to permit the elephant and the hippopotamus freely 
to roam over the plains of Sicily and Southern Italy. 
Fresh bones of these animals have been mined 'for ex- 
port by the ton from a cave near Palermo. 







Raised Beach in Sweden. 



The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE GLACIAL EPOCH AS A VERA CAUSA. 

The significance of the Glacial epoch can be fully 
realized only by those who have made a special study 
of the subject. Still, there are a few facts which can 
be briefly stated, and which bear with great force upon 
the question of the recent occurrence of a period of 
exceptional instability in the earth's crust; while the 
proper appreciation of these facts will tend to remove 
prejudices which the uniformitarian theory has raised 
in many minds against crediting any such story as that 
of the Flood. The main facts relating to the Glacial 
epoch, which are both capable of abundant proof and 
pertinent to the question in hand, are these : — 

At the close of the Tertiary period, snow accumu- 
lated over the elevated portions of the northern part of 
North America- and the northwestern part of Europe 
faster than it melted. Under the pressure of its own 
weight, this was consolidated into ice, which, under the 
laws regulating glacial movement, slowly flowed out- 
ward from the center of accumulation in lines of least 
resistance until it was melted by contact with the 



The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 221 

warmer atmosphere in the south. The area which was 
eventually covered by this glacial mass was about six 
million square miles, four million being in America, 
and two million in Europe. Its depth is known to 
have been one mile in New England, from the fact that 
it covered the top of Mount Washington, leaving for- 
eign boulders upon its very summit. It is altogether 
probable that its average depth was fully as great as 
this. In Greenland at the present time the thickness 
of the ice-covering over the center of the area is prob- 
ably much more than this. 

On this estimate, however, the mass of ice accumu- 
lated over the northern hemisphere at the climax of the 
Glacial epoch would be six million cubic miles, thus 
adding the pressure of this immense weight over the 
area of accumulation to disturb the balance of forces 
which preserve the normal relations between the con- 
tinents and the ocean. Furthermore, not only was the 
weight of this mass added to the northern part of the 
continents, but, to furnish the accumulating snow over 
this region, an equal amount of water was abstracted 
from the ocean. This would be sufficient to lower the 
level of the ocean two hundred and fifty feet the world 
over, thus relieving the ocean beds of that enormous 
weight. 

It will help to an appreciation of the tremendous sig- 




tc~~f- V- 



U 



5! Ill 



i @T 



The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 223 

nificance of this temporary transfer of weight from the 
ocean beds to the continents to note that a mass of ice 
one mile thick would produce a pressure at the bottom 
of one hundred and twenty-five atmospheres, equal to 
two thousand pounds to the square inch, or four billion 
tons to the square mile. The total amount of pressure 
thus transferred during the Glacial epoch from the 
ocean beds to the northern part of America and Europe 
would be twenty-four thousand million million (24,- 
000,000,000,000,000) tons. 

If, as is by no means improbable, the ice was two 
miles thick ( a little more than that of the Greenland 
ice-cap), the weight would be twice this enormous 
amount. 

Still better to appreciate these figures, one needs to 
compare them with those expressing the bulk and 
weight of the continents. North America has an area 
of 7,600,000 square miles, with an average elevation 
above the sea of 2,132 feet, which would make about 
3,000,000 cubic miles, or, at our lowest calculation, 
one-half the amount of ice piled up on the northern 
part of the northern hemisphere ; while, if the ice were 
two miles deep, the land mass of North America is 
only one-quarter that of the glacial ice. Reckoning the 
specific gravity of rock to be three times that of ice, the 
weight of the entire continent of North America would 



224 The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 

be, on one calculation, only one-third more than that of 
the ice of the Glacial epoch, and, on the other, one- 
third less. The total land area of the world is 55,- 
000,000 square miles, with an average elevation of 
2,411 feet above sea-level. Even this is (on the lowest 
calculation), in bulk, only four times, and on the large 
estimate only twice, that of the glacial ice. 1 

In addition to this, President Robert Simpson Wood- 
ward, of the Carnegie Institution, calculates that the 
attraction of the ice piled up during the Glacial epoch 
about the north pole would be sufficient to raise the 
water in that region several hundred feet, and to lower 
the ocean-level over the main ocean beds about fifty 
feet. This, therefore, would have to be added to the 
direct disturbing force of the ice itself. 

Now, if the earth be indeed in any degree plastic, it 
is easy to believe that the transfer of this enormous 
weight of ice from one portion of the surface to another 
would produce marked temporary changes in land-level. 
The piling-up of such a mass of ice over the glaciated 
area is a cause tending to depress the continents, whose 
effects geologists are compelled to reckon with. At 
the same time it is to be observed that the tendency of 
this increase of pressure over the glaciated area to 
depress the continents is reenforced by the relief of 
pressure in other portions of the earth's surface, caused 



The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 225 

by the abstraction of water from the ocean. Interest 
in the problem is further increased by the subsequent 
melting of this mass of ice, and the return of the water 
to the ocean beds, thus relieving the glaciated area of 
the pressure, and restoring it again to its normal condi- 
tion. If any one can in thought pass lightly over these 
known great changes which have recently taken place 
in the distribution of the forces of gravity over the 
earth's surface, it is because he has not paused long 
enough upon them to comprehend their significance. 

That there is a considerable degree of plasticity to 
the earth is proved by a wide range of geological facts. 
The very separation of the earth's surface into land and 
water, which indicates that the continental areas are 
elevated portions of the earth's surface, and the ocean 
beds depressed areas, proves it. Fossil sea-shells upon 
the summits of our highest mountains give clearest 
evidence that extensive areas which were formerly 
buried beneath the ocean have since been raised to great 
elevations. Indeed, the language which speaks of " the 
earth's crust " is as scientific as it is popular. As com- 
pared with the mass of the earth, the cooled-off outside 
crust is but a shell sensitively subject to the influence of 
the shifting of any load from one point to the other, 
such as is brought to light in the accumulation of gla- 
cial ice and its subsequent melting. 



226 The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 

That the earth's interior forty or fifty miles below 
the surface is hot enough to melt all known minerals 
is beyond reasonable controversy. 2 So far as man has 
penetrated the surface in wells and mines, the tempera- 
ture is found to increase one degree for every fifty or 
sixty feet, or one hundred degrees for every mile, which 
would give a heat of five thousand degrees fifty miles 
below the surface. That there is some such reser- 
voir of heat within a moderate distance from the sur- 
face of the earth is evident enough from the existence 
of volcanoes, whose activity we are learning from sad 
experience has been by no means confined to past ages. 

To just what extent, however, the center of the 
earth is in a fluid condition is not determined solely by 
its heat. For, upon approaching the center of the earth, 
the pressure of gravitation so increases that it is sup- 
posed to compress the hottest substances into a solid. 
But, as all concede, there must be, about fifty miles 
below the surface of the earth, a ring of material, of 
indefinite thickness, which is in a sufficiently semiplastic 
condition to allow it to respond to changes in the 
amount of superincumbent pressure. Upon this molten 
mass the crust of the earth reposes in a state of equilib- 
rium which is constantly liable to disturbance. The 
extent of the disturbances to which it is liable is meas- 
ured by the facts already adduced in the elevation of 



The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 227 

the continents and the depression of the ocean beds, and 
in the changes which have repeatedly taken place in 
these elevations as shown in geological history. 

Indeed, it would seem that the height of the moun- 
tains is limited by the forces which maintain the equi- 
librium of the earth's surface. Mountains could not be 
maintained above a certain height without overloading 
" the low arch of the earth's crust " ; so that it would 
settle down into the semiplastic mass beneath. In short, 
the crust of the earth is like a pontoon bridge : the more 
you pile on at one end, the higher it will rise at the 
other. 

This brings us to the main proposition had in view 
in this part of our discussion. The equilibrium of the 
earth's surface is so delicately balanced that it is very 
easy to believe that the disturbances of the Glacial epoch 
produced such an abnormal temporary instability of 
conditions that the story of the Flood, when reasonably 
interpreted, is not encompassed with any more a priori 
geological improbabilities than is any of the other great 
facts of geological history. 

In my recent excursion across the Asiatic continent 
I set out with the expectation of finding evidence in 
Mongolia, Manchuria, Siberia, and along the base of 
the Tian Shan Mountains that the Glacial epoch was 
marked bv accumulations of ice on the Asiatic conti 



228 The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 

nent commensurate with those which occurred in North 
America and Northwestern Europe. But in this I was 
disappointed. Whatever accumulations of ice have 
taken place in that region are very small in comparison 
with those which took place in America and Europe. 
In consequence of this, it at first seemed difficult to con- 
nect with the Glacial epoch the recent depression of 
the Asiatic continent implied in the story of the Flood, 
and confirmed by the abundant evidence to be presented 
in the next chapter. 

But, upon reflection, it will appear that a temporary 
depression of the Asiatic continent would not be de- 
pendent upon the overloading of its surface by an accu- 
mulation of glacial ice. The simple fact that the ocean 
beds were relieved of pressure to the extent to which 
we have indicated, by the abstraction of three hundred 
feet of water from the whole surface of the ocean, 
would, very likely, so disturb the equilibrium, that, in 
the readjustment of forces, the Asiatic continent would 
sink of itself, and rise again when the glacial ice was 
melted off, allowing the water to return to its former 
position. 

It is by no means impossible, however, that a see-saw 
motion between the continents would be the result of 
the alternate accumulation and disappearance of ice 
over Europe and America. When they were most 



The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 229 

deeply covered with ice, they would be abnormally de- 
pressed; while, upon the melting of the ice and the 
consequent relief of pressure over the glaciated area, 
the upward movement would be abnormal, inviting 
such a flow of the semiplastic magma beneath, that the 
Asiatic continent would for a time be correspondingly 
depressed. 

RECENCY OF THE GLACIAL EPOCH. 

Evidence accumulates to show that the Glacial epoch, 
one of the most momentous in the world's history, is a 
recent event, even as time is reckoned by ordinary 
standards. For a full statement of the evidence, the 
reader must be referred to innumerable recent reports 
of individual observers; but, for practical purposes, a 
sufficiently full statement of the fact is given in my vol- 
ume " The Ice Age in North America." Briefly sum- 
marized, the facts are as follows: — 

1. Nearly all the waterfalls in the glaciated region 
have come into existence, and so begun their work of 
erosion, since the melting-off of the glacial ice, and 
everywhere the post-glacial gorges worn by the reces- 
sion of the waterfalls are such as could be produced in 
a few thousand years by the forces now in operation. 

For example, the cataract of Niagara began its work 
when the glacial ice had melted off from Central New 



230 The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 

York sufficiently to allow the drainage of the Great 
Lakes to pass through the Mohawk into the Hudson. 
The length of the gorge formed by the recession of the 
falls is only seven miles, or, in round numbers, thirty- 
five thousand feet. The geological conditions through- 
out this district are nearly uniform. Recent surveys of 
the falls, compared with those made fifty years ago, 
show that the recession is at the rate of nearly five feet 
per annum, which would place the beginning of the 
falls at about 5000 B.C., making it contemporaneous 
with a high civilization in Egypt and Babylonia. There 
is no way of lengthening this chronology of the great 
cataract, except by introducing theories concerning the 
changes in the direction of the drainage of the Great 
Lakes which would diminish the water-supply, and so 
the rate of erosion. But it can be easily shown that 
this need not lengthen the time more than two thou- 
sand or three thousand years. 

Evidence from the recession of the Falls of St. An- 
thony, at Minneapolis, points to approximately the same 
date. Upon comparing the situation of these falls, as 
shown by the description and map of the Catholic mis- 
sionary Hennepin, their discoverer, in 1680, with the 
present position of the falls, it appears that they too 
have been receding at the rate of five feet per year; 
while the post-glacial gorge, extending from Fort Snell- 



The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 231 

ing up, is of the same length with that of the Niagara 
gorge, namely, seven miles. 

Approximately similar results are obtained by the 
study of numerous smaller waterfalls, which can be 
found all over the glaciated region. 

2. The existence of the innumerable lakes and 
ponds which dot the glaciated regions both of Europe 
and America points to a recent origin of those bodies of 
water; while in almost all cases their formation can be 
traced to the influence of the Glacial epoch. With few 
exceptions, the greater lakes are formed by the damming- 
up with glacial debris of preglacial watercourses, so as 
to divert the drainage to other channels. But, as we 
have already seen, the erosion which will eventually 
drain the lakes has proceeded only a short distance, 
while the majority of the smaller lakes which oc- 
cur in Northern Germany and Russia, Finland, 
Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, New England, North- 
ern New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minne- 
sota, and all of Canada, are what are known as 
" kettle-holes," being merely hollows where lingering 
masses of ice of the Glacial epoch were deeply cov- 
ered with glacial debris. These, upon finally melting, 
have left depressions, which, in most cases, have sub- 
sequently been filled with water, but frequently, where 
the soil is porous, are simply dry hollows. Now it is 



232 The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 

easy to see that the wash from the hills surrounding 
these lakes, and the accumulation of peat around their 
edges, are constantly at work to fill them up and oblit- 
erate them. In many cases the work to be done has 
been so slight, and the forces in operation have been so 
rapid, that they have been obliterated, and their pres- 
ence is simply marked by peat-bogs. Another force 
working to destroy these glacial lakelets is the erosion 
of the water passing through their outlets. This con- 
stantly tends to lower the outlets and drain the basins. 
A broad study of these facts leaves an irresistible 
impression upon every one who gives attention to them, 
that the age of these lakelets is brief. Their age is 
certainly to be reckoned in thousands of years, rather 
than in tens of thousands. 

3. Another method of obtaining an approximate 
estimate of the date of the close of the Glacial epoch 
is open to the inspection of almost every one, in the 
amount of post-glacial enlargement of the valleys of 
the streams, both great and small, which carry away 
the drainage of the glaciated region. As good an illus- 
tration as can be found (but it is only one of ten 
thousand) exists in Plum Creek, a small stream passing 
through the village of Oberlin, Ohio. The valley is 
twelve miles long, and it is wholly eroded in the uni- 
form glacial deposit, known as " ground moraine " or 



The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 233 

" boulder-clay," which covers the region. In the lower 
part of this valley or trough, a section a mile long has 
been carefully measured by my college classes, revealing 
the fact that the total amount of erosion accomplished 
by the stream since it began to flow over the surface at 
the close of the Glacial epoch has been to wear a chan- 
nel averaging three hundred and fifty feet in width and 
twenty feet in depth. It is easily seen that, as the 
stream in its meanderings swings from side to side of 
this channel, it is constantly increasing its width, and, 
as the gradient is twelve feet to the mile, also is slowly 
adding to its depth. By calculations draw T n from the 
rate at which this small stream is enlarging a new chan- 
nel, which was made for it a few years ago in the 
construction of the village waterworks, it is clearly evi- 
dent that ten thousand or twelve thousand years is a 
maximum limit of time necessary for the total amount 
of erosion which has taken place. 

4. In many places in limestone regions, large for- 
eign boulders were left, when the ice melted, resting 
upon a surface polished by the ice which had previ- 
ously passed over it. The action of subaerial forces in 
slowly dissolving limestone (a process with which we 
are too familiar in the decay of marble monuments in 
our humid climate) has lowered the general level of 
the limestone surface, except where it was protected 



234 The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 

underneath the boulders mentioned, so that these are 
found to stand on miniature pedestals. But in all cases 
these pedestals, never more than a few inches in height, 
are so low that, upon the most conservative estimate, 
they indicate only a few thousand years during which 
the present conditions can have been in existence. 

To such an extent has the evidence from all these 
sources accumulated in the past few years, that they 
can no longer be ignored. Professor Rollin D. Salis- 
bury, of Chicago University, one of the most compe- 
tent and judicious authorities upon the subject, thus 
writes in his recent (1902) final report upon the gla- 
cial geology of New Jersey: — 

" The date and duration of the Glacial epoch are 
matters of the greatest interest, but neither has been 
determined with numerical exactness. Many lines of 
calculation, all of them confessedly more or less uncer- 
tain, point to the retreat of the last ice-sheet from the 
northern part of the United States six thousand years 
or ten thousand years ago. While these figures are to 
be looked upon as estimates only, there are so many 
lines of evidence pointing in the same direction that 
the recency (geologically speaking) of the last glacia- 
tion must be looked on as established. The best date 
for the calculations which have led to the above results 
are furnished by Niagara Falls and the Falls of St. 
Anthony, at Minneapolis. In each case, the distance 



The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 235 

the falls has receded since the ice disappeared, and the 
present rate of recession are known with some degree 
of approximation to the truth. Assuming the rate of 
recession to have been uniform, the above results as to 
duration of post-glacial times for these localities are 
obtained. 

"A strong argument for the recency of the last gla- 
ciation is the slight modification which the surface of 
the drift has undergone. This sort of argument does 
not easily lend itself to numerical results. A summary 
of the various estimates of the duration of post-glacial 
time is given by Wright in his Great Ice Age [Ice 
Age of North America]" (p. 194). 

Thus, by attention to the general conditions accom- 
panying the Glacial epoch, we are led to the recognition 
of the existence of a unique period of instability in the 
relations of land and water levels which passed away 
only a few thousand years ago. For a brief geological 
period the ocean beds were relieved of an immense mass 
of water, which was piled up in the shape of ice upon 
the northern continents. After a time, which was very 
brief as geologists reckon it, this ice melted oft, relieving 
the glacial area from its pressure, and restoring it again 
to its original place in the ocean. During this process 
a general subsidence of the continental masses is not 
only far from improbable, but actually td be expected. 



236 The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 

But the forces in operation are too vast and complicated 
to permit us to work out their effects in detail. Usually, 
however, in such cases the results culminated towards 
the climax of the period, in an epoch of rapidly chang- 
ing effects. 

The geologist, therefore, need not be disturbed by 
such a consummation of events as is described in the 
biblical story of the Flood, but he well may be sur- 
prised at the sobriety of the account, at the prominence 
given to " the breaking-up of the fountains of the great 
deep," and at the assurance that the earth is no more to 
be destroyed by a flood ; for these characteristics of the 
biblical story are not the natural products of the human 
imagination, but show that the narrator was restrained, 
either by personal knowledge of the facts or by the 
guidance of divine inspiration. The glacial geologist 
especially may well be impressed by the announcement 
that the danger of so universal a deluge had passed 
away, since he also now discerns a reason for the pres- 
ent stability of the earth's crust in the passing-away of 
the temporary disturbing conditions connected with the 
Glacial epoch. Indeed, geologists agree that the pres- 
ent stability of the earth's crust is exceptional. 3 

In the following chapter we will present a remark- 
able series of facts, manv of which have recently come 



The Glacial Epoch as a Vera Causa. 237 

to notice, going to show that the changes of land-level 
which are here seen to have been probable, have actually 
occurred since man came into existence. While, as al- 
ready remarked, this cannot be expected to prove the 
truth of the biblical narrative in detail, it may be ex- 
pected to show that there is no valid scientific reason 
for rejecting the historical account of the Flood. In 
other words, the occurrence of the Flood does not 
make extravagant demands upon our scientific credulity. 



238 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 



CHAPTER IX. 
EVIDENCES OF A DELUGE IN EUROPE. 

According to the account of the Flood in Genesis, 
while it was so extensive as to need special arrangements 
to preserve the animals associated with man, the catas- 
trophe was, as geologists reckon time, of short dura- 
tion. Still, if we can consider the one hundred and 
twenty years of warning which was given to Noah as 
covering a period of subsidence, culminating in the 
final catastrophe described by the sacred writer as of 
a year's duration, we should have a progress, in the 
main, so slow and gradual that it could scarcely be ob- 
served from, year to year, though very likely producing 
the most wide-spread destruction of animal species 
which so evidently took place about the close of the 
Glacial epoch; w T hile the more rapid rise of the land, 
intimated in the biblical story by the short duration of 
the Flood, would account, as we shall see, for a large 
class of phenomena, which we are about to describe. 

But the influence of such a brief subsidence must be 
looked for, not in the general phenomena connected 
with the fossils in the ordinary rocks or with the dislo- 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe, 239 

cation of mountain strata, but in those superficial de- 
posits of gravel, sand, loess, and clay which everywhere 
girdle the shores, border the valleys, and mantle the 
upland plains of the continents. To discriminate in 
these superficial deposits between those which are due 
to the slow action of existing agencies and those which 
are the result of a wide-spread movement is by no 
means always an easy matter; yet much has been done 
in this direction during the last twenty-five years, with 
the remarkable result, that, whereas existing local 
causes are seen to be sufficient to account for the larger 
part of the erosion of gorges and river valleys and the 
deposition of sediment of various degrees of coarseness 
over broad plains, a large residuum of phenomena de- 
mands the presence of causes which have now either 
altogether ceased their activity, or have so diminished 
their force as to be inadequate for the explanation of 
the facts. 

I have perhaps been as active as any one in efforts 
to discriminate, in the superficial deposits in the north- 
ern part of North America and in Northwestern 
Europe, between those which are the direct result of 
the great ice invasion of the Glacial epoch, 1 and those 
which are the effects of local and more limited causes, 
and have, therefore, been strongly predisposed to at- 
tribute as much as possible to direct glacial agency, es- 



240 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

pecially as it so easily accounts for the larger part of 
the gravel deposits over these areas which were earlier 
attributed to a submergence of the continent or to the 
action of floating ice. But longer and wider study 
of the facts of surface geology reveals more and more 
clearly a considerable residuum of phenomena which 
indicate a brief post-glacial submergence, since man's 
advent, of a large part of Europe and Asia. 

EVIDENCE FROM EUROPE. 

The residual facts pointing to this conclusion in 
England and the continent of Europe have been very 
fully stated by the late Professor Joseph Prestwich, one 
of the most eminent, cautious, and unerring of recent 
geological observers. 2 The conclusions of Professor 
Prestwich we have already given with considerable de- 
tail in " Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences." 3 
But, for our present purpose, it will be in place to pre- 
sent a much ampler statement of the case. Fully to 
appreciate the force of the facts, however, one needs to 
go carefully through Professor Prestwich 's elaborate 
monographs referred to, or, better still, follow him, as 
I have done to a considerable extent, over the fields 
described. 

The evidence is classed under three heads; namely, 
the Rubble Drift, or " Head," of Southern England 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 24.1 

and Northern France; the Ossiferous Breccias of 
England and the Continent; and the High-level Loess 
of France and Central Europe. 

I. The Rubble Drift, or Head. — At numerous 
places over the southern counties of England and on 
the south side of Dover Strait at Sangatte, near Calais, 
in France, there are deposits of angular gravel bearing 
no relation to the present drainage systems of the coun- 
try, and containing palneolithic implements and the 
bones of extinct animals associated with prehistoric 
man. This drift is found as far inland as the vicinity 
of Oxford, and at an elevation on the Cotteswold Hills 
of about nine hundred feet. 

A typical illustration of this deposit is to be found 
at East Brighton, the great watering-place of Southern 
England, where it can be still studied to an excellent 
advantage. The deposit is here eighty feet thick, and 
the surface forms a continuous slope with the chalk 
cliffs, rising into the interior. Formerly the deposit 
extended a considerable distance into the sea, but the 
larger part of it has been eroded by the waves. The 
accompanying illustrations will aid in conveying the 
important facts. At the base of the rubble drift there 
is an old sea-beach, now elevated fifteen or twenty 
feet above the reach of tide. This can be seen along 



2 4 2 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 




A General View of the Rubble Drift at East Brighton, 
England. 

The view was taken looking eastward. The total elevation 
is 80 feet. The buried raised beach is dimly seen a few feet 
above the rock. The surface slopes gradually to the highland 
back from the shore. For a clearer view of the beach, see 
page 244. 






Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 243 

the coast for a distance of a mile or more, resting upon 
a rocky foundation. 

The superincumbent mass of the deposit must have 
accumulated in very peculiar circumstances. It has no 
regular stratification. An unstratified mass of sharp 
angular flints and chalk fragments constitutes the sur- 
face. Below this there is a series of irregular lenticular 
masses, of the same character, containing fragments of 
the Tertiary rock which surmounts the hills in the near 
vicinity. Projecting from the face of the cliff of this 
material as it is exposed are large blocks of this Ter- 
tiary sandstone, either angular or with angles but 
slightly worn. One of these measured by Professor 
Prestwich was 8x2x2 feet. The deposit shows clear 
marks in some places of rapid and tumultuous accumu- 
lation, while in others there is seen the fine lamination 
produced by tranquil water action and deposition. " But 
there is an entire absence of any of the effects produced 
by continuously running water, nor is the angle of 
bedding of the mass such as would be formed under 
subaerial conditions by rubble falling over the top of 
the cliff, which would lie at a much greater and more 
uniform angle." In this deposit are found numerous 
mammalian remains characteristic of post-Tertiary 
times. Among them were those of species of elephant, 
rhinoceros, reindeer, hippopotamus, horse, hog, and ox. 



244 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 



L -' ; 




Near View of the Raised Beach at East Brighton. 

This shows the base of the rubble drift, with a large un- 
worn sandstone block in the drift. Elephant bones were found 
here near the base of the drift. For the general situation, see 
illustrations on pages 242 and 247. 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 245 

The elephants' teeth and the bones in general are in 
such a perfect state as to show that they could not 
have been transported for a long distance. They 
showed signs of fracture, but not of wear. 

The rubble drift at Brighton is only one instance out 
of more than twenty in Southern England carefully 
described by Professor Prestwich. Prominent among 
the places are Dover and Folkstone, Eastbourne, Bir- 
ling Gap, New Haven, Port Slade Station, the Sussex 
Coast Plain, Hayling Island, the Isle of Wight, Isle of 
Purbeck, the Isle of Portland, the South Devon and 
Cornish coasts, the north coast of Cornwall and Devon, 
the Somersetshire coast, the lower Severn, Swansea, 
Gower, and Pembrokeshire. 

An important observation relates to the blown sand, 
or old dunes, which in various places occur between the 
rubble drift and the raised beach, especially on the 
north coast of Cornwall and Devon. These indicate 
that, after the old beach had been elevated, there was 
a considerable pause in the earth movements, sufficient 
to allow the accumulation of extensive dunes. Then 
followed the depression during which the rubble drift 
accumulated upon the top of the dunes. The existence 
of these dunes between the raised beach and the rubble 
drift indicates that the subsidence of the land preceding 
the accumulation of the rubble drift was rapid. Other- 



246 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

wise the waves of the ocean would have leveled and 
obliterated the dunes. 

The rubble drift differs in important respects from 
all ordinary gravel, such as is found along river courses 
or on the beaches of oceans and lakes, in 

( 1 ) The angularity and sharpness of the harder 
constituent debris. Evidently the material has been 
moved but a short distance; since both the fragments 
of stone and the fractured bones retain their sharp 
angles. 

(2) A second peculiar characteristic is that the 
material is all of local origin, and is derived from the 
higher grounds of the immediate vicinity. A signifi- 
cant fact, also, in connection with this, is that the drift 
is arranged around the base of the higher land, as if 
it had been swept in all directions from it, yet so far 
from the base that the agency of distribution could not 
have been running water. In some cases, as on the 
South Downs, at Port Slade, west of Brighton, this 
extends from two to five miles over a comparatively 
level surface. The material, however, is not collected 
in deltas, as would be the case if it were transported by 
small streams, but is pretty equally distributed around 
the base; nor does it have any regular stratification, as 
would be the case if it had been transported by ordi- 
nary water action. 






m 2 en? 



^5 



II 

I B 



B S- 



P S g. 



P D 



P CD 



I cT 8 

1' o 5 

"f § 

it tr 

BO £ 

s. I! ^ 
s " 

EO O 

a g g 



- B4" 



o tr 5, a 




248 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

(3) There is a total absence in these deposits of 
marine and fluviatile shells. This has ordinarily been 
taken as conclusive evidence against the origin of these 
deposits during a period of submergence. In the opin- 
ion of Professor Prestwich, however, it is simply evi- 
dence of the brevity of the submergence, the time of its 
continuance having been too short to permit the estab- 
lishment of colonies of shell-fish of any description. 

Of all the unsatisfactory theories proposed to ac- 
count for these facts, that involving the agency of ice 
and snow sliding down the hill slopes, aided by the 
running off of water from the melting of the ice and 
snow, is the most plausible. But insuperable objections 
to this theory are forcibly urged by Professor Prestwich 
as follows: — 

" By this means debris might be propelled over the 
edge of the cliff along its whole face, without wearing 
very definite channels, but in times of thaw the escape 
of the surface-waters must have ended in producing 
results analogous to those caused by heavy rainfalls. By 
ice and snow the rubble might also have been driven 
over smaller gradients and to a greater distance beyond 
the cliff, but I doubt whether it could, as at Godrevy, 
have been propelled for a distance of above two hun- 
dred feet from the face of a cliff; for the cliff is not 
more than forty feet high, and the hill at the back does 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 249 

not rise higher than one hundred and fifty feet, and 
that at a distance from it of some two hundred and 
fifty feet. Besides, the slope of the rubble does not 
exceed an angle of io° to 12 ; whereas the angle of 
repose of loose gravel is 40 , and that of rubble 45 °, 
though these would be somewhat diminished, but not 
to that extent, by the greater fluidity of the mass pro- 
duced by the snow. Nor would a sludge of ice, snow, 
and rock-debris in motion be more favorable than run- 
ning water for the preservation of the land-shells and 
mammalian bones. 

"Another difficulty in the way of the ice-and-snow 
hypothesis is the small size of the areas (at times to 
be measured by acres) that form the centers of disper- 
sion, and the small gradients and short lengths of the 
slopes. It is very different in a mountainous district, 
where the frozen masses are large and the slopes steep ; 
but with the gentle slopes of the South Downs how 
would the winter's ice and snow on them have been 
equal to the propulsion of the debris of flints and loam 
across the Sussex Coast plain — a distance of from two 
to five miles over a comparatively level surface? Or, 
to take the case of the Isle of Portland, is it likely — 
with its length of three miles and its gradient of about 
one in forty feet — that the ice and snow could have 
forcibly driven down the ' head ' in one direction over 
the raised beach southward, and in the other direction 
have sent the large mass of Chesilton debris northward ? 
Even in the case cited by Mr. Drew, where the moun- 
tains rise several thousand feet above the valle5 r , the 



250 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

cones of dejection do not extend more than one mile 
from the point of discharge, while at the base of the 
cones the debris has a thickness of five hundred feet. 
Nor is it possible that either snow or rainfall on open 
ground could have transported the huge blocks found 
in the ' head.' " 

After, in like manner, considering all the other the- 
ories put forth to account for this remarkable formation, 
it would seem that there is only one left which suffi- 
ciently covers all the facts, namely, that this rubble 
drift has been swept off from the higher surfaces to the 
lower in every direction by a general movement of 
overlying water produced by the elevatory force of 
successive earthquake shocks, such as cause tidal waves 
like that which destroyed the city of Lisbon in 1755, 
and which have been of frequent occurrence during the 
past century on the west coast of South America. 
These waves are produced by a sudden uplift of the 
bottom of the ocean, where the water is comparatively 
shallow. In the recent earthquake which destroyed 
San Francisco, the vertical movement of the land 
amounted to ten feet in places. But most instructive 
of all is the report made the present season by Professor 
R. S. Tarr of his studies along the " fault " produced 
by the earthquake of 1899 along the coast of South- 
eastern Alaska. 4 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 251 

" On one stretch of coast," he says, " the uplift 
amounted to eighteen or .nineteen feet, and opposite 
this, on the other side of the fiord, from thirty to forty- 
seven feet for a distance of five or six miles. This is 
the greatest uplift of the land ever recorded as having 
occurred at a single period of time." 

" This deformation of the earth's crust, with its 
accompanying uplift of the coast, and the associated 
earthquake shocks, is of decided geological interest en- 
tirely aside from the fact that it is the greatest change 
of level so far recorded. It is a representation of the 
processes by which mountains have grown in the past— 
a lesson of the present for use in interpretation of the 
changes of the past. It shows us plainly, what other 
regions have shown less strikingly, that the process of 
mountain growth is still in operation : and it tells us 
not only that the St. Elias chain is now growing, but 
that in a single month it was uplifted, in at least one 
point, as much as forty-seven feet. 

" We do not know how far this uplift extended on 
either side of Yakutat Bay ; but the fact that there was 
such a vigorous shock at the Muir Glacier in the same 
month suggests the probability that it extended at least 
one hundred and thirty-five miles towards the south- 
east." 

We will permit Professor Prestwich to explain the 
formation of the rubble drift in his own words: — 

" It is evident that the force — whatever it was — 
which determined the formation of the rubble drift 



252 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

acted from above downwards. This, under certain cir- 
cumstances, might have been the result of the descent 
from the hilltops of ice and snow, or of water. Ice 
might have acted in some respects in accordance with 
the observed phenomena, but in other respects there are 
the objections I have already named; and with regard 
to rain and surface-waters, the results are, as I have 
shown, irreconcilable with their agency. But there is 
another form under which we may consider the action 
of water, and this, although not free from objections, 
answers to all the physical conditions of the case. 

" It is that of water in a body, not moving rapidly 
over the surface as in a wave of translation, but dis- 
placed from a state of rest, while the land is in process 
of elevation from beneath it. There is the objection, 
amongst others, to a wave of translation that it would 
carry the debris in one prevailing direction, and in each 
locality we should have foreign elements more or less 
largely introduced, and the drift assuming a ' crag-and- 
tail ' arrangement behind the hills; whereas no such 
distribution prevails, but on the contrary we have in 
the area we have described a number of local centers 
from which the drift diverges in different or in qua- 
quaversal directions and combines in the intervening 
valleys. This is a result which would necessarily fol- 
low on the emergence of land from beneath a body of 
water, and such seems to me the most probable solution 
of the problem we have before us. 

" I am therefore led to suppose that a submergence 
of the land which, judging from the heights at which 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 



253 




Diagram showing the Direction of the Currents on a Hill 
Range during Uplift. 



"o being the parting-line or watershed between the superin- 
cumbent waters AB, the divergent currents during uplift will 
be in the directions indicated by arrows; but while A moves 
down a short steep slope for a distance x, B passes over a sur- 
face equal to some multiple of x in the same time. Conse- 
quently there will be, independently ot other causes, a larger 
volume of drift collected at the base of a than of a, and this 
disproportion is very apparent in the case of most of our Chalk 
ranges. 

" Where the course of the ossiferous drift is along made, 
narrow channels, it would pass down them and spread out 
fan-shaped at their termination, as at Upchurch and Farn- 
ham." 



254- Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

the rubble drift is found, could not have been less than 
one thousand feet, followed immediately upon the epoch 
of the low-level valley drifts and the Caves. There is 
little or nothing to show as a direct consequence of the 
submergence. The land over which the waters spread 
seems to have undergone but trifling alteration or denu- 
dation. The raised beaches exhibit in consequence 
thereof no apparent erosion, and the blown sands only 
slight denudation ; and this may be due to the impact 
of the ' head.' It is even difficult to say whether their 
irregular thickness and eroded surface resulted during 
the submergence or emergence of the land. I can only 
conclude that the submergence was slow and gradual, 
yet sufficiently rapid to prevent wave-action from re- 
moving the whole of the blown sands, or from forming 
terraces, which it would have done had the fall been 
prolonged or subject to long interruptions. For the 
same reason no portion of the strand was washed on to 
the land. 

" The absence of marine shells in the submerged land 
may seem a difficulty. Had the submergence been of 
long duration, a marine fauna would necessarily have 
established itself ; and I can only account for its ab- 
sence by supposing that reelevation followed, after but 
a short interval, on the previous subsidence. The phys- 
ical results of that elevation are sufficiently definite to 
justify our assumption, and are explanatory of the 
conditions under which it was in all probability ef- 
fected. 

" Mr. W. Hopkins r ' has shown that if a considera- 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 255 

ble area at the bottom of the sea were suddenly elevated, 
a icave of translation accompanied by a current, the 
velocity of which would depend principally upon the 
depth of the sea, would diverge in all directions from 
the central disturbance. Calculations, he says, ' prove 
beyond all doubt that paroxysmal elevations, beneath 
the sea, varying from fifty to one hundred feet in height, 
may produce currents of which the velocities shall vary 
from at least five or six to fifteen or twenty miles an 
hour, provided the depth of the sea do not exceed eight 
hundred or one thousand feet.' In considering the 
magnitude of the blocks which might be moved, he 
found that the force exerted on the surface of given 
magnitude increases as the square of the velocity, and 
that it ' varies as the sixth power of the velocity of the 
current.' But the movements must be repeated for 
large blocks to travel beyond short distances. 

" It is evident that we have in this form of disturb- 
ance an engine of enormous power; and though our 
hypothesis does not deal with the great changes and 
powerful currents contemplated by Mr. Hopkins, we 
may infer what the results might be with even a frac- 
tional proportion of such changes. Movements of this 
character would, like Nasmyth's hammer, be capable 
at times when the uplift was rapid of exerting enormous 
force; while at other times, when the uplift was slow, 
the action might be of the most gentle character. 
Hopkins's calculations were made for one central area 
of elevation, and dealt with surrounding level surfaces. 
In the case before us the area of elevation consisted of 



256 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

a variable and uneven land-surface, so that each hill 
or group of hills formed a center for the divergent cur- 
rents, the velocity of which would further vary accord- 
ing to the varying gradients and lengths of the slopes. 
" It follows from these premises that the character 
of the deposits formed under such circumstances will 
afford a relative measure of the velocity and duration 
of the currents under which they were accumulated. 
Where, for example, the sediment is fine, we may con- 
clude that the velocity was slow, and the rise which 
gave origin to it small. When, on the contrary, the 
materials are coarse, we may suppose the rise to have 
been more rapid and the velocity of the current greater. 
Where, again, large blocks have been transported, a 
more energetic movement is made manifest. Some in- 
dication also of the duration of the uplift is afforded 
by the mass of the material moved and distance trav- 
ersed." 

2. Ossiferous Fissures. — The same theory is de- 
manded to explain the " ossiferous fissures " abundant 
in Southern England and in France, and long ago de- 
scribed by Buckland in his " Reliquiae Diluvianae," 
but not fully understood by him. These fissures abound 
in the limestone regions of Southern England. They 
are not caverns in the ordinary sense of the word, but 
simply fissures, open at the top and extending down 
perpendicularly, or at a slight inclination, sometimes 
a hundred and forty feet. Thev are filled with angu- 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 257 

lar rock fragments, broken and splintered bones whose 
fractured edges are unworn and sharp, all cemented 
together in a matrix of sand, earth, and clay through 
which lime has filtered, making what is called a breccia. 
The bones represent the horse, ox, deer, wolf, hyena, 
tiger, hare, water rat, weasel, boar, ■ and some other 
animals. 

It is acknowledged by all that these fissures have 
been filled in from above, and it was the opinion of 
Dr. Buckland, that the process had been very gradual, 
and that the animals had accidentally fallen in from 
time to time. An unanswerable objection to this the- 
ory is, that, though the opportunities for observation 
have been very extensive, in no case has a complete 
skeleton of any animal been found, or even scattered 
bones that would make a skeleton. If animals had 
fallen in, as Buckland supposed, it is inconceivable that 
this result should have followed. In the fissure at 
Oreston, Mr. Cottle collected 1,587 teeth of the ani- 
mals above mentioned, 147 jaws, 250 vertebrae, and 26 
skulls; but there was not a single whole skeleton, nor 
did any of the bones show marks of wear, such as 
would appear if they had been rolled along by a run- 
ning stream of water, nor did any show the marks of 
hyenas' teeth, which are common upon the fragments 
of the ordinary caves. 



258 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

After considering exhaustively all possible modes of 
accounting for these facts, Professor Prestwich finds 
himself limited, as before, to the hypothesis of a brief 
submergence of the land, such as would drive the ani- 
mals in a heterogeneous mass to the higher lands, where 
they would be drowned, and their remains scattered 
over the surface. After time enough had elapsed for 
their carcasses thoroughly to decay, the reemergence of 
the land distributed the bones by the same process that 
determined the distribution of the rubble drift. As 
the material was swept along by the successive impulses 
of uplift beneath the water, the fissures along the slopes 
became filled in the heterogeneous manner described. 

Among the most interesting and instructive fissures 
supposed to have been filled in this way is that at San- 
tenay, a few miles south of Chalons, in Central France. 
This is situated upon an isolated hill connected with 
the range of Cote-d'Or, 1,030 feet above the valley of 
the Saone, which is here six hundred feet above the 
sea. Two ordinary bone-caves occur upon the opposite 
sides of the hill, containing remains of the horse, wolf, 
fox, bear, lion, deer, ox, elephant, and rhinoceros. 

The fissure under consideration is near the summit 
of the hill, and is filled with a breccia — 

" composed of the fragments of the adjacent rocks, em- 
bedded in a yellow or brownish earth, with bones which 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 259 









The Mountain of Santenay. 

Concerning the above illustration, taken from Prestwich, he 
further remarks: 1. That it is outside of the Alpine glaciated 
region, and could not have been overtopped by floods in the 
Saone, caused by a glacial dam at Lyons. 2. That, as there 
were no entire skeletons in the fissure, and indeed none in any 
of the similar fissures in France, the bones could not have 
accumulated by the chance falling in of animals. The bones 
were without order and in no possible relative proportion. 
3. That, under extreme glacial conditions, herds of such ani- 
mals would have not resorted to high hills, but would have 
retreated to the open plains. " It is inconceivable that under 
any ordinary circumstances the predaceous animals and their 
victims should have congregated together on the summit of 
a high, steep, and isolated hill." 4. That it is not possible 
to suppose the animals were driven to the summit by floods 
produced by excessive rainfall, unless it were a hundred times 
greater than at present. The general opinion of the members 
of the Geological Society of France who visited the place in 
1876 was, that " the animals had fallen victims to floods, but 
whether caused either by dams of ice, the melting of snow- 
fields, or excessive rainfall, was left indeterminate." 



260 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

were determined by Professor A. Gaudry to be of the 
cave lion, lynx, horse, wolf (very abundant), fox, 
badger, bear, hare, rhinoceros, hog, ox, and deer. The 
bones were in a very broken state. M. Gaudry ob- 
serves that their accumulation could neither be at- 
tributed to man nor to animals, for the fractures in no 
way resemble those made by man for the purpose of 
extracting the marrow, and, notwithstanding the 
abundance of wolves, none of the bones show traces of 
having been gnawed by carnivora. How then could 
this collection- have been brought together? As M. 
Gaudry justly remarks, 'why should so many wolves, 
bears, horses, and oxen have ascended a hill isolated on 
all sides?' M. Gaudry further remarks that the de- 
posit seems to have been formed by water precipitating 
the breccia and the bones into a fissure. ' But whence,' 
he says, 'have come the waters sufficiently abundant 
to bring together the bones?' The fissure is so near 
the top of the hill that there is little gathering ground 
above it, and had the bones and fragments of rock been 
carried in by a stream or torrential rains, they must 
have shown more or less wear, and have lost their 
sharp angles." 

After duly considering all other suggested hypothe- 
ses, Professor Prestwich applies his theory for the 
solution of the problem in the following forcible para- 
graph :— 

" The condition and position of the bones are, on 
the other hand, at Santenay and Pedemar, as they are 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 261 

at Oreston and Catsdown, such as might result from 
the effects of a gradual submergence of the land. For 
a submergence of the character I have described would 
naturally drive the animals in the plains to seek refuge 
on the higher hills. Flying in terror and cowed by the 
common danger, the carnivora and herbivora alike 
sought refuge on the same spot, and alike suffered the 
same fate wherever the hill was isolated and not of a 
height sufficient for them to escape the advancing flood. 
We may suppose the subsidence to have been so slow 
that there was no sudden rush of water to carry the 
bodies far away, so that as they decayed, the limbs fell 
and were scattered and dispersed irregularly on the sub- 
marine surface. When that surface was again up- 
heaved, the bones and detached limbs, together with the 
detritus on that surface, were, as I have before ex- 
plained, carried down by divergent currents to lower 
levels, or they fell into fissures of the rock over which 
the detrital matter passed, or else, when facing the 
coast, over the ledges of the old cliffs rising above the 
raised beaches. Swept down by the intermittent cur- 
rents produced by the more or less rapid uplifts, and 
falling with the mass of detritus in a body over the old 
cliffs or into the open fissures, the bones, in the one 
case as in the other, were broken and smashed in the 
extraordinary manner we now find them. Added to 
this was the fall, caused by the earth tremors inevitable 
with such movements, of fragments of rock, some of 
large size, from the sides of the fissures, so that very 
few of the bones escaped whole. At the same time, the 



262 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

action was of too short duration, and the transport was 
too short a distance to wear down the sharp angles 
either of the rock or the bone fragments. Raised again 
to the surface, the rain waters, percolating through the 
calcareous rocks traversed by the fissures, and carrying 
down carbonate of lime, have generally cemented the 
debris of the fissures, and occasionally of portions of 
the 'head' (Brighton), into a hard brecciated mass 
from which it is now difficult to extract the bones. 
Where, on the contrary, the debris remained loose on 
the surface and formed permeable superficial drift, the 
effect of water percolation has been to remove the cal- 
careous matter together with the bones, so that where 
thus exposed, the rubble is more unfossiliferous than 
when it lies in fissures or hollows where the surface 
waters could not freely percolate." 

An equally striking application of the theory is 
found on the rock of Gibraltar, where fissures nearly 
three hundred feet deep occur, filled with breccia sim- 
ilar to that already described. In the case of Gibraltar, 
strong additional support to Professor Prestwich's opin- 
ion is given by consideration of the smallness of the 
area at the top of the rock. The animals found in the 
fissures on Gibraltar are nearly the same as those enu- 
merated at Santenajr. It is in the highest degree im- 
probable that all these various wild animals could have 
at anv time or habitually lived together on the rock. 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 



263 




Tranverse Section of the Rock of Gibraltar. 



a, limestone breccia, or rubble drift; L, limestone; S, shale; 
x, ossiferous fissures; c, raised beach. "The well-known Rock 
is an isolated hill, separated from the mainland by a few 
miles of flat ground about ten feet above the sea-level, and is 
composed of hard limestones of Jurassic age, forming a high, 
scraggy ridge, rather more than two and a half miles long, 
from 550 to 1,550 yards broad, and rising at the north end 
to the height of 1,349 feet. . . . The Rock has been extensively 
faulted and fissured. Large rents, some perpendicular, and 
others inclined at various angles, and extending to great 
depths, traverse it in different directions. They are met with 
at all heights up to 1,100 feet." One fissure is 290 feet deep, 
and another 288. In one of these, at a depth of fifty-three feet, 
the workmen found, in red breccia, two teeth of rhinoceros, 
a human molar tooth which had never been cut, together with 
a flint knife, and numerous large pieces of flint. 



264 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

" The crags and caves may have been the resort of 
hyaenas and other predaceous animals, but the deer, 
and other ruminants, the remains of which were numer- 
ous, could never have lived in the neighborhood of these 
carnivora. They would naturally have frequented the 
surrounding plains and forests, w r here they could have 
found food, shelter, and water, rather than scrags — 
dry and in great part barren. It is true that the preda- 
ceous animals might have carried there some portions 
of their prey, but had they done so, either the bones 
would have been devoured, or such as remained must 
inevitably have shown marks of the animals' teeth. 

" In the second place, no animal remains left on the 
surface could possibly have escaped destruction in the 
proximity of ground frequented by hyaenas and other 
carnivora; or, supposing any bones had escaped, they 
would have decayed under ordinary atmospheric agen- 
cies, and exhibited more or less weathering; had they 
also been washed down by streams and amongst rocks, 
they would have been rolled and worn. But there is 
no evidence of weathering or wear, nor is it shown that 
the fissures are connected with old watercourses. The 
bones have clear and sharp fractured edges. Only in 
two instances it is mentioned that the bones present the 
appearance of being weathered and sun-cracked, and 
this seems to refer to those found with human remains 
and works of art, and not to the older breccia. 

" For these reasons I think this explanation cannot be 
accepted, and would again revert to the hypothesis of 
a submergence of the land. This affords a vera causa 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 265 

for the association of animals otherwise so little likely 
to be found together. It could only have been, as in 
the cases I have before named, a great and common 
danger, such as that of the gradual encroachment of the 
sea on the land, that could have so paralyzed their nat- 
ural instincts as to have driven those various animals 
to flock together in search of a common place of refuge 
from a catastrophe which threatened all alike. Under 
such circumstances the ruminants would naturally flee 
from the plain to the higher hills, and when these were 
isolated, as in this and the other cases I have named, 
whenever the waters rose above those hills, they were 
drowned and their limbs dispersed in the manner I 
have before described." 

We have room for but one more illustration upon 
this point. Near Palermo, upon the island of Sicily, 
there is an ossiferous breccia of a very remarkable and 
unique character, containing an enormous number of 
hippopotamus bones, which are so fresh that they are 
cut into ornaments and polished, and when burnt give 
out ammoniacal vapor. More than twenty tons of 
bones were shipped from this one place for commercial 
purposes in the first six months after their discovery. 
The bones were mostly those of hippopotami, with a 
few only of deer, ox, and elephant. They belong to 
animals of all ages down to the foetus. The bones of 
the various animals were mixed together without order, 




Mouth of the Cave of San Ciro, near Palermo. 
(Photograph by Frederick B. Wright.) 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 267 

and were broken, scattered, and dispersed in fragments, 
and none of them bore marks of gnawing. The cavern 
is at San Ciro, about two miles from Palermo, and is 
at the base of the remarkable amphitheater of hills sur- 
rounding the plain on all sides, except towards the sea. 
The hills are from two thousand to four thousand feet 
in height. The amphitheater is from two to four miles 
in diameter, and the elevation of the rock shelter is 
about two hundred feet above the sea. 

" The circumstances, therefore, which led to these 
remarkable accumulations of the remains of the hippo- 
potami must have been extraordinary, and I see no 
hypothesis which meets the case, so well as the one that 
I have suggested to account for the bones of mammalia 
in the rubble drift and in the ossiferous fissures, though 
the local conditions in this case are peculiar. 

" On the submergence of the Sicilian area, the wild 
animals of the plains would, as in the case of Santenajr, 
Cette, and Gibraltar, be driven to seek refuge on the 
nearest adjacent high ground and hills. In the instance 
before us, the animals must have fled to the amphitheater 
of hills which encircle the plain of Palermo on all sides 
except the sea, and on the slopes of which the Cave of 
San Ciro and the others are located. As the waters 
rose, the area of this plain became more and more cir- 
cumscribed, and retreat more and more impossible, ex- 
cept through a few rare passes in the range of hills, 
until, at last, the animals were driven together at the 



268 Evidences of a Deluge' in Europe. 

base of the hills, where they were stopped by mural 
precipices impassable to the larger and heavier animals, 
though some of the more active and agile ruminants 
and carnivores may have, and, judging by the rarity 
of their remains, probably did escape to the mountains 
behind. Retreat entirely cut off by projecting promon- 
tories on either side, the only paths yet open to the 
imprisoned herds were those that led to the caves, which 
were a little above the general level of the plain. 
Hither the animals must have thronged in vast multi- 
tudes, crushing into the caves and swarming over the 
ground at their entrance, where they were eventually 
overtaken by the waters and destroyed, and, as their 
bodies decayed, a confused mass of their remains were 
left and scattered on or near the spot where they finally 
congregated. 

" For reasons before given, the land could not have 
remained long submerged. As it rose intermittently 
from beneath the waters, our supposition is that the 
rocky debris on the sides of the hills was hurled down 
by the effluent waters on to the piles of bones below, 
breaking them into fragments, and forming, together 
with them, the heterogeneous mass of bones and rubble 
constituting the breccia. The last more rapid uplift, 
the effects of which are so frequently seen in many sec- 
tions of the ' head,' brought down the larger blocks of 
rock that now lie on the top of the whole. Scina, an 
independent witness, inferred from the character of 
the rock fragments, and from the red clay in which they 
are imbedded — and which comes from decomposed 



270 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

rock surfaces on the hills above — that, in the case of 
the Belliemi breccia, both the detritus and the bones 
had been washed down from Monte Belliemi. All this 
must have been effected in a space of time comparatively 
so short, that, though the bodies of the animals decayed, 
the bones underwent but little change, nor, encased as 
they became in an almost impermeable breccia, has the 
change they have since undergone been great. 

" Thus there is, in all the essential conditions, a 
close agreement between this Sicilian breccia and the 
rubble drift of the south of. England, as likewise with 
the rubble on the slopes of Mount Genay, of the Rock 
of Gibraltar, and of other places mentioned in the pre- 
ceding pages. In all, the debris consists strictly of local 
materials; the fragments are angular and sharp; the 
bones are mostly in fragments, and are neither gnawed 
nor worn; and the faunal remains are those alone of a 
land surface, and of species such as then were to be 
found in the district. This rubble, also, forms in all 
these cases the last of the drift beds. The only appar- 
ent difference arises from the circumstance that, in the 
Sicilian area, the geographical configuration was that 
of a land-locked bay with many minor bays or em- 
brasures in the front of the hill-range, so that, as the 
waters rose, the animals of the plain were driven to- 
gether, as in a seine, into those bays, where, as a last 
resource, they sought shelter under the mural precipices 
and in the more accessible caves. As these precipices 
were nearly vertical, they formed, as the land rose 
again, a partial protection from the effluent currents, 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 271 

which otherwise might have carried the debris to a 
greater distance outwards. Under no other circum- 
stance that I can conceive could the animal remains 
have been massed as they are at the foot of the escarp- 
ments encircling the plain of Palermo. 

" It may be asked how could large herds of hippo- 
potami have existed in so limited a plain as that of 
Palermo. It needed then to have had much greater ex- 
tent and larger rivers. I have shown that the present 
height of the raised beaches on the English coast does 
not give the initial upheaval, but is the sum of the dif- 
ferences of several earth-movements — that the primary 
upheaval of the beaches was not less than one hundred 
to one hundred and fifty feet greater than the altitude 
at which they now stand, and that this led to the con- 
version of a considerable extent of the area of the 
Bristol and English Channels into dry land. What 
little evidence we have on the coast of Malta, and of 
Greece, points to similar elevations of the coasts of 
the Mediterranean, so that large tracts of dry land may 
then have existed between the Sicilian and Italian 
shores, and formed suitable pasture grounds for the 
hippopotami. With increase of the land area, so would 
the rivers also have had increased size, and though they 
may not have been very large, yet as Sir S. Baker has 
shown, perennial waters are not indispensable to the 
hippopotamus, for in the Settite and other rivers of the 
Soudan, those huge animals tide over the dry season, 
by resorting to the few pools left in the dried-up chan- 
nels of the rivers." 



272 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

Not to pause longer upon the' numerous other facts 
collected by Professor Prestwich bearing upon this 
point, we turn finally to select one from his many illus- 
trations drawn from — 

3. The Loess Deposits of Europe. — It is well, how- 
ever, to call the attention of the reader to the fact that 
the origin of the loess is one of the most difficult 
problems which geologists have to consider, and that 
here, as in the other evidence, it is the wide experience 
and great skill of Professor Prestwich which have en- 
abled him clearly to see the bearing of the facts pre- 
sented. For evidently the loess has been distributed by 
a variety of agencies. It is only in special conditions 
that its occurrence can have the significance which Pro- 
fessor Prestwich assigns to it in the instances adduced 
by him. 

Loess is a very fine superficial loam which is usually 
devoid of any intermixture of sand or gravel, or indeed 
of any grit, and without any remains of marine and 
rarely of fluviatile shells. It can be easily crushed in 
the hand to an almost impalpable powder, yet its con- 
sistency is such that it will support itself many years 
in vertical cliffs a hundred feet and more in height. 
In St. Joseph, Mo., I have seen on a perpendicular 
cliff of loess the fresh imprints of the shovel used to 
cut a roadway fifty years before. In China I have 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 273 

traveled for miles between perpendicular walls of loess 
fifty feet in height through a road worn by centuries 
of travel. It is so porous that the rainfall all perco- 
lates to the bottom, so that no springs appear except at 
its base; and yet, on account of capillary attraction, it 
is never wholly free from moisture. In composition it 
is nearly pure silica, or sand, with a little carbonate of 
lime. This usually fills innumerable tubular pores 
which penetrate the mass, and give it both its con- 
sistency and its internal vertical structure, causing it 
to preserve a perpendicular face wherever it is exca- 
vated. Its characteristics are unmistakable, and are 
identical the world over. 

Along the Missouri River from Kansas City far up 
into Dakota, loess forms the lining bluffs of the valley, 
having a depth of more than a hundred feet. Large 
areas in Russia, China and Central Asia are covered 
with it to even greater depths, while its occurrence 
along the valley of the Rhine accounts for the German 
name by which it is ordinarily designated. 

The anomalous facts connected with its distribution 
have greatly puzzled geologists. The material is so 
fine that it is readily blown about hither and thither 
by the wind, so that Baron Richthofen and others main- 
tain that the loess of China is but the accumulated dust 
which the westerly winds have brought over from the 



274 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

parched and elevated plains of Mongolia and Tibet. 
The definite relation, however, of the deposits to wa- 
ter-levels in the valleys of the Mississippi and the 
Rhine makes it certain that in many areas these are 
water deposits. Still, the facts are so complicated that 
Geikie and others think it necessary in Central Europe 
to bring in both wind and water to account for its 
distribution. In the glaciated regions both of Europe 
and America many anomalous local deposits of loess 
can be readily accounted for by the action of water held 
in place by ice during the retreat of the continental gla- 
cier. No doubt the greater part of the arguments for 
the Flood drawn from the loess by Sir Henry Howorth 
and others are explained by fuller knowledge of the 
irregularities produced by the slowly melting ice-sheet 
which covered the northern parts of the continents of 
Europe and America. But the facts adduced by Pro- 
fessor Prestwich have been carefully selected with ref- 
erence to this danger of error, and strongly confirm the 
other evidence pointing so strongly to the occurrence 
of a recent catastrophe in Western Europe closely anal- 
ogous to that described in the biblical account of Noah's 
Flood. A single one of the facts under this head must 
suffice. A fuller discussion of some phases of the sub- 
ject is naturally deferred to later chapters, which treat 
of its distribution in Asia and America. 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 275 

The Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey are 
surrounded by a raised beach which is overlaid by rub- 
ble drift such as was described under that head. The 
greater part of the island of Guernsey, however, con- 
sists of a plateau of granitic rocks from three hundred 
to three hundred and fifty feet above sea-level, but 
without any commanding heights. The plateau is cov- 
ered very generally by a deposit of loess or brick-earth, 
from five to ten feet thick, extending over the highest 
points of the surface. In character this is identical 
with that on the mainland. 

It is not possible to account for this deposit of loess 
on any of the theories which are limited to river floods, 
glacial inundations, or rain wash as the distributing 
agencies; for — 

" there are no rivers in either island, and the water- 
courses are mere small brooks that could scarcely flood 
the lowest ground, and certainly could never, in present 
nor past times, have reached the plateau on which the 
loess occurs. Nor are there any hills, rising above the 
general level of the plateaus, the wash from which 
could have been spread over those plateaus. Nor can it 
be admitted that it was formed when the island was 
connected with the mainland, and that the loess is due 
to the extension of the land flood-waters, over what was 
then part of the continental area ; for, unless the loess 
were older than the raised beaches, it is obvious, as 



276 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 




Raised Beach on the Island of Guernsey. 



Similar beaches appear at various points around both the 
island of Guernsey and of Jersey. But, as will be seen by the 
illustrations on pages 278 and 279, the accumulation of rubble 
drift is naturally less than it is on the mainland, where the 
elevations in the interior are higher and more extensive. It 
is plain that the covering of rubble drift could not have been 
brought into place by local currents of water, since there is no 
chance for the origin of such streams, and the rubble drift 
overlies the raised beaches on every side of the islands. (Pho- 
tograph by Mr. J. E. L. Miller.) 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 277 

those beaches extended all round the islands, that at 
the time of the deposition of the loess, the islands were 
then, as now, detached from the mainland. The loess, 
in fact, is closely connected with the ' head,' and not 
infrequently associated with it. A thin layer of an 
angular rubble similar to that which forms the ' head,' 
is also often to be found at the base of the loess, and 
as the rubble is newer than the beaches, so must the 
loess likewise be newer, and subsequent therefore to the 
severance of the islands from the mainland. 

". . . . that a uniform sediment of that character 
should be formed during such a submergence as we 
have described, is, owing to the waste of the softer sur- 
face beds and decomposed rocks by the advancing wa- 
ters, what we might expect. This waste was general 
over all the area submerged, and the waters must have 
been rendered turbid to a considerable distance from 
the coast (on the coast of China the sea is colored yel- 
low to a distance of one hundred miles from land by 
the fine loess-mud carried down by the rivers), so that 
not only the mainland but the adjacent islands also 
were covered with a mantle of sedimentary matter de- 
posited during those periods of comparative quiet or 
lulls, which are shown to have occurred in the forma- 
tion of the ' head.' The absence of marine remains is 
readily accounted for by the temporary nature of the 
occupation of the land by the sea waters', as well as by 
the circumstance that the waters would be rendered 
for a time unfit for the habitation of marine life. . . . 

" If we suppose that the loess in these islands was 



278 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

deposited during and after submergence, it follows that 
as the land rose, it would be removed where it was in 
the way of the effluent currents, and carried with the 
angular rubble down to lower levels, or to a distance. 
That this was the case is shown by the fact that the 
' head,' which covers the beaches, consists of angular 
local rubble, with loess or brick-earth (derived from 
the plateaus) as a matrix and forming occasional seams 
and overlying beds. The following diagram will illus- 
trate my meaning." 



c. Raised beaches. 

R- Slates and granite rocks. 

Diagram Section across the Island of Guernsey. 



" One feature that I failed to notice in Guernsey 
occurs in marked distinctness in Jersey. This is the 
distance to which the ' head ' has been propelled from 
its base. The section at the islet of La Motte is es- 
pecially illustrative of this fact. . . . This islet lies one 
and one-half miles southeast of St. Heliers, on a part 
of the coast where the shore is low, but rising gradually 
inland to a height, at Mont Ube, of one hundred and 
forty-nine, and at Prince's Tower, two and one-half 
miles inland, of two hundred feet. A rubble drift 
descends the slopes of Mont Ube and St. Clements 
(160 feet) and forms a small low cliff on the coast, 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 279 

while at the distance of about one thousand feet from 
the shore, and accessible at low water, is the small, 
flat islet of La Motte. It is only a few acres in extent, 
and consists of a base of diorite, capped by the remains 
of an old beach, overlaid by a mass of rubble drift." 



Section from La Motte to Ube. 
a, rubble drift, composed of granite and diorite debris, in a 
brick earth, or loess, covered by a sandy earth and soil, c, 
raised beach, only portions of which remain. 

" The syenite and diorite fragments in the rubble 
are derived from the hills of the adjacent coast, while 
the brick-earth which caps those hills forms the chief 
portion of the rubble matrix. Notwithstanding the 
slight difference of level and the very small gradient 
of the slope from the inland hills to La Motte, a con- 
siderable spread of rubble drift has been propelled thus 
far out, which, I conceive, could only have been effected 
by a strong effluent current, passing from the mainland 
seaward during the upheaval of the land. The hills 
are so low and distant that no snow-slide could possibly 
have effected this transport." 

" The phenomena, however, are readily explicable 
on the assumption that, as with the ' head ' at Brighton 
and Sangatte, the driving force was that of a superin- 
cumbent body of water, flowing outwards. As at 
Sangatte, the forcible impact of the ' head ' on the 



280 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

beach has led to the incorporation of fragments of the 
beach in the ' head.' " 

After giving further evidence that this loess must 
" have an origin independent of those to which it is 
ordinarily assigned," and presenting similar evidence 
in a large- number of other cases both among the Chan- 
nel Islands and over widely spread portions of the Con- 
tinent, Professor Prestwich states the probable method 
of accumulation as follows: — 

" I am well aware that several objections, more or 
less formidable, may be raised to the hypothesis which 
I have suggested to account for the origin of this drift. 
A few of these I may allude to here, though it would 
not be possible to discuss in these pages the wide and 
important general questions involved. Those who hold 
uniformitarian views will object to the want of known 
precedents and to the exceptional character of the 
agency proposed. In this difficulty I cannot share. I 
must repeat what I have long contended for, that it is 
impossible to suppose that our very limited experience 
— say of two thousand years — could furnish us with 
standards applicable to the comparatively illimitable 
past. In fact, those that are relied on depend upon 
unstable conditions and are liable to vary with every 
passing century. While admitting the permanence of 
the laws of nature, it is impossible, under the conditions 
through which this globe has passed, to suppose that at 
all former periods the effects, which have resulted from 



Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 281 

the operation of those laws, though equal in kind, were 
equal in degree. As in other similar questions, we 
must judge of the hypothesis not by an a priori assump- 
tion, but by the agreement of the consequences which it 
involves with the facts, and by the extent to which it 
satisfies the various conditions of the problem." 

" Whatever phase of the rubble drift we may exam- 
ine, we recognize in all of them physical and faunal 
conditions referable to the agency of one and the same 
cause. Whether we look at ( 1 ) the debris in one 
section of the loess, (2) the breccia on slopes, (3) the 
' head' over the raised beaches, (4) the basement grav- 
els of many valleys, or (5) the ossiferous fissures, we 
discern a complete absence of that wear which results 
from maintained river, sea, or ice action. Nor is there 
any indication of that transport of debris from a dis- 
tance which attends river or tidal action. On the con- 
trary, all the component materials are of local origin, 
derived from the adjacent slopes or hills, and they are 
all unworn. The evidence of the organic remains is to 
the same effect, in that they are those of a land fauna 
alone, with an entire absence of marine and fluviatile 
remains. The bones found in the rubble drift are not 
only in the same unworn condition as the rock frag- 
ments, but they are free from all marks of gnawing. 
This is a proof that the animals had not, as in the 
caves, fallen a prey to carnivora, but must have met 
their death in a way which was unusual — such as 
from drowning — for had their bodies remained on a 
land surface after death, they would have been subject 



282 Evidences of a Deluge in Europe. 

to being devoured by predaceous animals, or else the 
bones would have shown traces of weathering and wear. 
At the same time the sharply fractured state and dis- 
persion of the bones show that they must have been sub- 
jected to considerable violence and displacement. 
These conditions, as well as the mode of distribution of 
the rubble from many independent centers, accord in 
all points with the results that would ensue from the 
submergence and reelevation of a land surface from 
beneath deep waters after a temporary submergence. 

" These conclusions, startling though they may ap- 
pear, have been forced upon me, not only by my own 
observations in the South of England, and parts of the 
Continent, but also by the independent evidence of 
other geologists, though their interpretation of the facts 
may be different. Looked at in all its aspects, I see no 
alternative that equally well answers to all the condi- 
tions of the problem. Other explanations may satisfy 
some of the conditions in particular cases, but none of 
them satisfy all, whereas I think it will be found that 
the submergence hypothesis not only meets the require- 
ments of each particular case, but that it also shows 
them all to be concordant, and such as would pertain 
to one common and general cause." 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 283 



chapter x. 

EVIDENCE OF A DELUGE IN ASIA. 

The summary in the preceding chapter by Professor 
Prestwich is limited to the facts connected with West- 
ern Europe and the Mediterranean basin. How far 
this subsidence of which he finds evidence may have 
extended in a more northeasterly direction he does not 
venture to say, because of the lack of evidence. 

It was partly to supply this lack that, at the begin- 
ning of 1900, in company with Mr. Frederick B. 
Wright, I set out on a zigzag journey across Asia, 
through China, Mongolia, Manchuria, Siberia, Turke- 
stan, Asia Minor, Trans-Caucasia, Russia, Syria, Pales- 
tine, and Egypt; and that again, in 1905, with the same 
end in view, I visited, in company with Mrs. Wright, 
England, Denmark, Sweden, Southern Russia, the 
Crimea, and revisited the Lebanon Mountains and 
Northern Egypt. 1 

The first expedition was undertaken in the expecta- 
tion of finding in Eastern and Northern Asia signs of 
the occupation of those regions by glacial ice similar to 
those which exist so abundantly in corresponding lati- 



284 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

tudes in North America. But in this we were disap- 
pointed. While the ice of the Glacial epoch extended 
in the United States in an unbroken sheet to the latitude 
of New York City, on the Atlantic coast, and to the 
southern part of Illinois, in latitude 38 , in the Mississ- 
ippi Valley, there was evidently no general occupation 
of Siberia by glacial ice south of the fifty-sixth degree 
of latitude. But in place of glacial phenomena we 
found evidence of a recent depression of the area, 
amounting to somewhere from two thousand to three 
thousand feet. This evidence largely consists in the 
distribution of loess over China, Central Asia, and 
Southern Russia. It is necessary, therefore, to give the 
facts somewhat in detail. 

All the rivers of Northern China are densely loaded 
with sediment derived from the loess-covered areas 
through which they pass in the upper portion of their 
courses. In this respect they much resemble the Mis- 
souri. The vast plain of the Hoangho, in Northeastern 
China, consists essentially of this sediment, which has 
been deposited gradually by the river. The river in 
the lower part of its course now occupies a channel 
raised considerably above the great mass of the plain, 
which stretches away on either side. It is owing to 
this position of the river that periodical floods so often 
devastate the interior, and that the mouth of the Hoang- 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 285 

ho is subject to such variation. The river now empties 
into the Gulf of Pechili, about 150 miles south of 
Tientsin, but not long ago it wandered over the south- 
ern plain and joined the Yangtsekiang 150 miles above 
Shanghai, 400 miles south of its present outlet. On 
the other hand, at the present time, during extreme 
floods, portions of the water turn off to the north, near 
Kaifun, and, after a course of 350 miles, join the 
Peiho at Tientsin. Indeed, this most fertile portion 
of the Chinese Empire is a broad delta of modified loess 
deposited by the Hoangho, its base extending from 
Tientsin to Shanghai, a distance of 600 miles, with its 
apex 300 miles inland. 

A general impression of the rapidity with which the 
denudation of the loess is proceeding may be formed 
by noticing the extent of very muddy water which 
borders the whole Chinese shore of the Yellow Sea. 
When forty miles out from Shanghai, the traveler en- 
counters a sharply cut line, which can be distinctly 
seen for a long distance in either direction, separating 
the clear water of the ocean from the turbid, opaque, 
silt-laden water brought down by the great Chinese 
rivers. It is thus evident that deposition of loess is 
now taking place with great rapidity all along the 
Chinese side of the Yellow Sea. 

This is further shown bv the extensive shoals and 



286 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

sand-banks which extend from Shanghai nearly to the 
Shantung peninsula. They mark an extension of the 
combined delta of the Hoangho and of the Yangtse- 
kiang, as the former has from time to time turned its 
flood in that direction; but the historical record of the 
growth of land on the Gulf of Pechili is still more con- 
vincing of the activity of this transporting influence, 
Pao-to, on the Peiho River, was near the shore 200 B.C. 
It is now forty miles inland. During the Han dynasty, 
Tientsin was a seaport. Now it is thirty miles inland. 
As late as 500 a.d., the sea was eighteen miles nearer 
Tientsin that it is at the present time, while the increas- 
ing difficulty experienced by ships in approaching the 
harbor of Taku, at the moutH of the Peiho, is confir- 
matory evidence of the rapidity of this sedimentation. 
The records show that all along the shore of the Gulf 
of Pechili the land for the last two thousand yeari> 
has been gaining on the sea at the rate of about one 
hundred feet per annum. These facts need to be borne 
in mind when considering the date of the period of the 
accumulation of the loess over the interior region pene- 
trated by these Chinese rivers. 

LOESS ON THE BORDER OF THE PLAIN OF PEKING. 

Peking is situated near the northeastern extremity 
of that broad belt of modified loess stretching out on 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 287 

either side from the Hoangho which we have been de- 
scribing, and is about thirty miles from the bordering 
mountains, which limit the plain on the northwest, and 
about eighty miles inland from the sea. From near the 
border of the mountains to the sea through Peking the 
slope of the surface is pretty uniform, averaging about 
six feet to the mile, so that the surface of the loess at 
the entrance to the pass at Nankau is about six hundred 
feet above tide. The slope from Peking to Nankau, 
however, is considerably greater that it is on the other 
side toward the sea. Issuing from the pass at Nankau, 
a very distinct delta extends out on the plain for a dis- 
tance of between five and six miles. This delta consists 
of a rather confused intermingling of loess with sand, 
and gravel, and occasional fragments of rock a foot or 
two in diameter. This coarser material occurs near the 
surface as much as four miles outside the mouth of the 
gorge, the surface sloping to that distance in a direct 
line at the rate of fifty feet a mile, making two hun- 
dred feet in the first four miles; but on the southwest 
side the descent is abrupt, leaving a long low plain 
several miles wide between the delta and the mountains 
in that direction. 

On the contrary, on the northeastern side the deposits 
of loess, at nearly the same level with the head of the 
delta, stretch for manv miles along the base of the 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 289 

mountains toward the Ming tombs. In many places 
here we passed between perpendicular sections of loess 
fifteen to twenty feet in height. They were especially 
prominent in the vicinity of a small stream -coming 
down from the mountains about half way between Nan- 
kau pass and the Ming tombs, a distance of about ten 
miles; but the larger stream coming down from the 
mountains into the amphitheater around which the 
Ming tombs are built has worn a broad deep channel 
in the sedimentary deposits, and occupies a bed fifty 
or more feet below the general level. This bed is 
thickly strewn with boulders several miles away from 
the base of the mountain. The portion of one of these 
boulders projecting out of the ground measured 9x6x3 
feet. 

From the situation of these deposits, it is clear that 
they sustain a definite relation to the comparatively 
small streams coming down into the plain from the 
mountains to the northwest. Of these the Bishaho, 
which comes through Nankau pass, is the largest. Evi- 
dently, at the time of the deposit of the deltas, water- 
level was met at the base of the mountains at the 
elevation of six hundred feet, which is that of the head 
of the delta spreading out from the Nankau pass. It 
seems also clear that, at the time of the main deposition, 
the material to which the stream had access was much 









f 


"■$- i V-: 






Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 291 

more abundant than it is now, for at the present time 
all these streams are rapidly eroding material at these 
higher levels and transporting it to lower levels. The 
Bishaho, having completely abandoned the line of its 
old delta, now turns off to the south, to meander along 
the low plain intervening between it and the mountains 
in that direction at a level two hundred feet lower than 
its former bed. 

In one of these valleys, near the Mongolian escarp- 
ment, there was especially clear evidence of the recent 
cessation of the agencies which had been distributing the 
loess in its normal quantities. This was two miles 
above Hanchinbah, in the first stream east of the escarp- 
ment, running southwest between mountain ranges 
about two thousand feet higher than the valley. Here 
is a bluff of loess about forty feet in height, and extend- 
ing back from the stream in a well-defined terrace for 
a considerable distance, yet it was exposed to the direct 
force of the stream in a concave bend with its unpro- 
tected perpendicular face to the stream. The stream 
bore every mark of being at times torrential, its bed 
being full of large boulders, some from four to five feet 
in diameter, all in slow process of transportation down 
the stream. The gradient of the stream here was be- 
tween one hundred and two hundred feet per mile. 
That so large an expanse of loess should have been 



292 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

accumulated to such an extent by present agencies, or 
should have remained in this unprotected position for 
many thousand years, would seem extremely improba- 
ble, not to say impossible. 

WIND AND WATER COMBINED AS DISTRIBUTING 
AGENCIES. 

Baron Richthofen, in his great work on " China," 
maintained that the source of the Chinese loess was to 
be found in the desiccated area of Central Mongolia 
now occupied by the Desert of Gobi. Here, during 
long ages, the superficial rocks, according to him, have 
be'en slowly disintegrating under the conditions of an 
exceedingly dry climate, accompanied with great alter- 
nations of heat and cold, while the wind has been con- 
stantly transporting it in clouds of dust toward the 
eastern and northeastern borders, where it has been de- 
tained in excessive quantity in the moister climate of the 
mountain valleys lying east of the Mongolian escarp- 
ment. 

But it seems necessary, from the facts above present- 
ed, to believe that its present distribution over North- 
eastern China was mainly secured by the agency of 
gradually receding water, the presence of which would 
be obtained by a temporary general depression of the 
land, amounting at any rate to several hundred feet. 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 293 

Over much of the space bordering on Mongolia, the 
loess has accumulated in level areas which resemble 
lake-basins. In many cases these are without outlet, 
and contain remnants of larger bodies of water, which 
are now drying up, leaving well-marked terraces at 
elevations of considerable height around the rim. In 
many of these level areas of loess within the drainage 
basin of the Yangho, there are numerous deep narrow 
ravines, with branching tributaries, cut to a depth of 
one hundred feet or more by retrograding erosion, the 
loess standing in perpendicular faces on either side. 
Pumpelly describes one of these chasms as " more than 
seventy-five feet deep, with a width of only four feet 
between vertical walls of loam, and winding in a 
a crooked course for more than a mile." In many 
places, especially near the bordering ledges of rock and 
near the center of the larger valleys occupied by the 
main stream, there are distinct lines of coarse gravel 
and rocky fragments interstratified with the loess. This 
oftentimes continues for a long distance over a com- 
paratively level area, where it would seem impossible 
for superficial currents from local cloudbursts to have 
produced the results. 

On the other hand, it was noticed that in the nar- 
rower valleys, running east from Kalgan to Shiwantse, 
between the lofty border of the Mongolian plateau and 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 295 

the nearest border range, there were numerous and ex- 
tensive deposits of loess that had been very clearly 
drifted in by the wind. The resemblance of these de- 
posits to immense snowdrifts accumulating on the lee 
side of the mountains was very striking. This was 
especially the case at Shiwantse, where the entire village 
of 1,500 or 2,000 inhabitants finds shelter in commo- 
dious and comfortable houses dug into the hillside of 
loess which flanks the eastern face of the mountain 
range. These houses are excavated in successive reced- 
ing stories one above the other, the natural roof of one 
house serving as the front yard of the house above it. 
These dwellings extend for three hundred feet or more 
up the slope of the loess, which continues upward for a 
considerably greater distance. In this valley we saw 
many such villages, and in crossing the mountain from 
west to east found extensive drifts of the loess up to a 
height of 5,000 feet above the sea. But the greater 
accumulations of loess were below a level of 3,000 or 
3,500 feet above the sea, and in many cases, even on the 
margins of the larger and deeper valleys, were spread 
out in such extensive and level areas as to suggest a 
terrace deposit near the margin of standing water. It 
became increasingly difficult for us to believe that wind 
could have distributed the material with such an even 




Another House at Shiwantse. 

This view shows the perpendicular face of the loess in 
which the excavations are made. The Chinese in these 
illustrations are Catholic converts. (Photograph by F. B. 
Wright.) 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 297 

surface on the margin of such well-marked and deep 
valleys as we repeatedly crossed. 2 

But, notwithstanding the lack of glacial marks in 
Eastern Mongolia, and after making the most of the 
wind hypothesis for the accumulation of the loess on the 
Chinese border, the way is still open to maintain that 
here, as elsewhere, its ultimate origin is glacial. For 
microscopical examination shows that the particles of 
loess the world over are of mechanical origin, closely 
corresponding to the fine sediment which is held in sus- 
pension by subglacial streams, which is the result of 
glacial erosion. Chemical analysis shows, also, that 
it is not clay, but extremely fine sand, the particles of 
which average only one-two-hundredth-thousandth of 
the size of an ordinary grain of sand. Still, even with 
this small size, the particles of loess will settle in water 
nine times as quickly as the particles of clay. 3 

The general distribution of loess likewise points to 
its glacial origin. In the United States it is practically 
limited to those portions of the Missouri and the Mis- 
sissippi Valley contiguous to the glaciated area and to 
the lines of drainage leading from it. Indeed, the 
largest deposits of loess in the Missouri Valley are 
definitely referred to the floods accompanying the melt- 
ing of the lobe of glacial ice whose border extended east 
and west midway across the State of Iowa. In Europe 



298 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

the great deposits of loess are those over the southern 
plains of Russia, which form the belt of black earth so 
productive of wheat and other cereals. These Russian 
deposits are likewise seen to have a definite relation to 
the great Scandinavian glacier, which extended as far 
south and east as Kiev and Penza. In Central Europe 
the smaller deposits of loess may easily have been de- 
rived from the Alpine glaciers, which were formerly 
much more extensive than now. 

So confident was Professor James Geikie of the gla- 
cial origin of the extensive loess deposits of China, that, 
in the third edition of his " Great Ice Age," he repre- 
sented upon his map an extensive glaciated region on 
the borders of Mongolia, near Kalgan. My own per- 
sonal investigations in 1900, however, revealed a total 
absence of the marks of glaciation over that area, as 
well as over that of the Vitim plateau east of Lake 
Baikal, which he had covered with extinct glaciers. If, 
therefore, the loess of China is of glacial origin, we 
must look to some more distant source. 

It has been suggested to me by Dr. N. O. Hoist, of 
the Swedish Geological Survey, that the glacial origin 
of the Chinese loess may still be maintained by looking 
to the high mountains of Central Asia for its source* 
As is well known, extensive glaciers are found in all 
the higher altitudes of the Himalaya and Tian Shan 



300 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

Mountains, but my investigations proved that these 
Asiatic glaciers never extended down into the plains to 
anything like the extent with which the Alpine glaciers 
invaded Switzerland and Northern Italy; for, in a 
drive of eight hundred miles along the northern base 
of the Tian Shan Mountains at an elevation of about 
two thousand feet above sea-level, no moraines what- 
ever were encountered, while, two years later, Professor 
William M. Davis and Mr. Ellsworth Huntington 
crossed the Tian Shan Mountains from Kalgan to 
Verni, and found likewise, by actual observation, that 
at no time had glaciers extended down the flanks of 
these mountains below the level of seven thousand feet. 
Still, loess accumulated to an immense extent about the 
base of both sides of the range, occurring in specially 
large amount wherever the streams which head in the 
glaciers debouch upon the plain. 

These facts open the way to regarding the loess of 
China as having its ultimate origin in the mountains of 
Central Asia, since it may be the grist which the glacial 
streams from these high mountains had originally 
brought down upon the borders of the Gobi Desert, 
thence to be transported by the prevailing southwesterly 
winds to the mountainous eastern border of the great 
Mongolian plateau. Speaking of the wind as a trans- 
porting agency, Pumpelly remarks, that 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. ' 301 

" no one can realize the capacity of wind as a trans- 
porter of fine material who has not lived through at 
least one great storm on the desert. In such a simoon 
the atmosphere is filled with a driving mass of dust and 
sand which hides the country under a mantle of im- 
penetrable darkness and penetrates every fabric ; it often 
destroys life by suffocation and leaves in places a de- 
posit several feet deep. . . . The often cited instance of 
far driven volcanic ashes shows the ability of the wind 
to carry comparatively coarse dust through distances of 
several hundred miles, but it does not seem improbable 
that the finer particles may remain suspended while the 
wind makes a complete circuit of the globe." i 

In my own experience in Eastern Mongolia I frequently 
witnessed whirling columns of dust rising like thunder- 
clouds from the earth, and moving onward to deposit 
their burdens in far-distant places. During one whole 
half-day, when approaching Kalgan, the air was so full 
of dust that it was impossible to see the teams that were 
passing on the other side of the road. In crossing the 
mountains west of Shiwantse, as already remarked, 
this dust was found to have accumulated on the lea 
side in drifts which rivaled the mountains themselves in 
size. 

One can therefore easily believe, with Baron Rich- 
thofen, that the loess of China is dust which has been 
blown in from the arid plains of Mongolia; and he 



302 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

may also believe, with Dr. Hoist, that it is a glacial 
grist originally brought down by the mountain streams 
which now disappear in the Desert of Gobi, but which 
formerly deposited their burdens upon the shores of the 
vast sea which at one time filled that inclosed basin. 
Upon the drying-up of this sea at the close of the Gla- 
cial epoch, the abundant material was at hand to be 
swept along by the winds, and account for the relatively 
rapid accumulation of loess which during that epoch 
evidently took place in the mountainous border of East- 
ern Mongolia and Northern China. At the present 
time the erosive agencies are- removing these deposits of 
loess in the mountains much more rapidly than they 
are accumulating, and are distributing it upon the lower 
levels of China. The vast plain penetrated by the 
great Chinese canal consists, as we have remarked, of 
loess brought down from this border and redistributed 
by the overflowing Hoangho. 

The correctness of this theory concerning the glacial 
origin of the Chinese loess is strongly confirmed by the 
contrast presented by those regions which are similarly 
related to the Desert of Sahara. Here we have the 
same vast arid region, in corresponding latitudes, swept 
by prevailing westerly winds, but there is no accumu- 
lation of loess in Egypt or Arabia or in the mountains 
of Syria. There is plenty of sand, but evidently there 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 303 

was no loess for the wind to blow. These facts, it 
would seem, would effectually negative the theory of 
Richthofen, and some others, that the original forma- 
tion of loess is to be attributed to the subaerial disinte- 
gration of rocks in arid regions; for nothing can be 
more arid than the Desert of Sahara, and nowhere is 
loess so conspicuously absent as over those regions 
towards which the winds of the Sahara blow. 

But, whatever doubts might be raised respecting such 
a recent depression of land as we have supposed in 
China, they cannot well exist concerning a correspond- 
ing depression on the other side of the great Central 
Asiatic plateau, facing Siberia and Turkestan. At the 
foot of the lofty Ala-tau Mountains, which border this 
plateau on the northwest, the Russian military road 
runs for five hundred miles along a terrace of loess, 
from two thousand to three thousand feet above ocean- 
level, whose constitution is precisely like that of 
Northern China. To the south the mountains rise in 
successive peaks to a height of from fifteen thousand to 
twenty-three thousand feet; while to the north a rap- 
idly descending plain stretches almost without a break 
more than two thousand miles to the Arctic Ocean. 
To one who travels this region with open eyes, there 
can scarcely be any question, that, at a comparatively 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 305 

recent period, these waters washed the shores of the 
Asiatic plateau at an elevation of between two thousand 
and three thousand feet above present sea-level. On the 
shores of this great inland extension of the Arctic Sea 
are the sites of the present cities of Verni, Pishpek, 
Chimkent, Tashkent, and Samarkand, — cities which 
now occupy the very center of the Asiatic continent. 
Lake Balkash, the Aral and Caspian seas, with innumer- 
able other small depressions, are in the desiccated bed 
of this late oceanic bottom. 

Similar extensive deposits of loess occur in the val- 
ley of the Araxes, in Armenia, up to the base of Mount 
Ararat, and characterize other valleys in Northern Per- 
sia and in Transcaucasia. 

CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE. 

Among the most interesting corroborations of this 
theory is the occurrence of Arctic seal in the waters of 
Lake Baikal and of the Caspian Sea. It would seem 
impossible to account for this remarkable distribution 
of the species except on the theory that the whole inter- 
vening space had been recently covered with salt water, 
converting Lake Baikal into an oceanic bay. Upon the 
elevation of the land so as to sever the connection with 
the sea, this lake would so gradually change its charac- 
ter from salt to fresh water, that the species of seal left 



306 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

in it could become adapted to fresh-water conditions 
and thus remain as additional evidence of the recent 
geological changes of level. In the Caspian Sea, closely 
allied species of seal are also to be found. But nowhere 
else do they occur so far away from the ocean. The 
slightness of the changes which have taken place in 
the species indicates the very recent date of the geologic 
events which have brought about the wide dispersion 
and perfect isolation of this curious animal. 

We have already referred to another class of facts 
pointing to the recentness of the great geologic changes 
in this region, namely, that, contrary to the general 
rule respecting lakes and seas without outlets, Lake 
Balkash and the Caspian and Aral seas are less salt 
than the ocean. The water of the Caspian Sea is only 
one-third as salt as the ocean, while that of the Aral 
Sea is so fresh that animals drink it, and that of Lake 
Balkash is fresher still. This points to a very recent 
period when the outlets' ceased to carry a surplus of 
water into the ocean sufficient to freshen them. Time 
enough has not yet elapsed for them to accumulate salt 
equal to that in ocean water, much less to that in such 
inclosed basins as Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea. 

Further corroborative evidence is found in a study 
of the climatic changes of Central Asia — a subject 
which presents one of the most complicated and difficult 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 307 

problems with which science has to do. If it can be 
shown that our theory of a recent extensive subsidence 
of the continent, followed by a subsequent rapid re- 
elevation, will solve this problem, that very fact will go 
far to establish its truth. 

Briefly stated, the facts to be coordinated are as fol- 
lows : The Aral and Caspian seas occupy central points 
of an inclosed basin, covering more than two million 
square miles, which has no present connection with the 
ocean. The surface of the Caspian Sea is eighty-five 
feet lower than that of the Mediterranean, while its 
depth is more than two thousand feet. So slight is the 
elevation of the land between the Azov and Caspian 
seas, that a depression there of less than thirty feet, or a 
rise in the Caspian of a little more than one hundred 
feet, would now permit their waters to mingle through 
the long marshj r lake of Mariytch. There are abundant 
evidences, in fossils and old shore-lines, that these seas 
were connected up to recent times, and that for a period 
there was an overflow of water from the whole Aral- 
Caspian depression into the Sea of Azov, and so on 
into the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic basin. 

In order to secure this overflow, the precipitation 
over the basin must be greatly increased, or the evapora- 
tion diminished. But we are not limited to the Ural 
and the Volga and the rivers of the Caucasus for this 



308 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

formerly increased water supply. The Aral Sea, which 
now occupies an inclosed basin by itself within the 
greater inclosure, formerly overflowed its banks, and 
poured into the Caspian a volume of water greater than 
that of Niagara. The deserted channel of this old 
stream, known as the Uzboi, is easily traceable. Its 
length is about five hundred miles, and so distinct is the 
channel, that Russian engineers followed it a few years 
ago, in their survey for a canal to give water commu- 
nication between the two seas. The only difficulty with 
the canal project was the lack of water to fill it. 

The level of the Aral Sea is maintained by the two 
historic rivers, the Oxus and Jaxartes, now known as 
the Amu Daria and the Syr Daria. Both these rivers 
rise in the high mountains of Central Asia, and through 
the summer are abundantly supplied with water de- 
rived from the melting of the snows which cover the 
mountain summits. Each of these rivers has now about 
the same capacity as the Niagara. But so fierce is the 
evaporation over the region (where there is an annual 
rainfall of only three or four inches), that all this vast 
water supply is returned directly to the clouds. 

Going farther east, we come to the river Chu, which 
descends in great volumes from the Thian Shan Moun- 
tains, and disappears in the desert before reaching the 
Aral Sea. Still farther east, the Hi and various other 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 309 

smaller rivers come down from the same mountain 
heights, and disappear in Lake Balkash; while numer- 
ous other shorter streams disappear in the desert long 
before forming a junction with the larger bodies of wa- 
ter. Indeed, the whole region is dotted with dried-up 
lake beds, where a saline deposit covers the whole sur- 
face. 

Upon reaching the Irtysh River, we find it coming 
down through a depression between the Tian Shan 
and Altai Mountains about two thousand feet above 
the sea, leading over into the inclosed basin generally 
known as the Desert of Gobi, although that designa- 
tion properly covers only the eastern part of the area. 
The western part is occupied by the basin of the Tarim 
River, ending in Lob Nor. This basin is surrounded 
by the Tian Shan Mountains on the north, and the 
mountains of Tibet on the south, many of their peaks 
reaching more than 20,000 feet above sea-level. We 
have but imperfect knowledge of the general elevation 
of the basin, but we know that Turfan, at about its 
center, is one hundred and fifty feet below sea-level ; 
while the general level is certainly much below that of 
the Sungarian depression, which at that point forms 
the watershed between it and the plains of Northern 
Siberia. 

Over this vast interior basin, also, as over that of the 



310 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

Aral-Caspian depression, there is abundant evidence of 
its former occupation by water. All through Tertiary 
times this sea, far greater in extent than the Mediter- 
ranean, was in existence, having a connection with the 
northern ocean through the Sungarian depression, as 
the Mediterranean has with the Atlantic through the 
Strait of Gibraltar. But by a gradual elevation of the 
land the sea became separated from the ocean, and 
through excessive evaporation the waters gradually dis- 
appeared, until now there remain only a few insignifi- 
cant lakes, fluctuating in size with every changing 
season of the year. But that this body of water con- 
tinued in considerable dimensions down to recent times 
is shown by the references to it by Chinese historians 
under the designation of Han Hai. There is likewise 
much evidence of the existence of flourishing cities in 
various places of the desert where now a water supply 
is out of the question, and where drifting sands cover 
ruins of considerable magnitude. 5 Dr. Tschernyschev, 
Director of the Russian Geological Survey, informs me, 
upon the basis of recent personal investigation, that, at 
levels considerably above Kalgan, there are great de- 
posits of loess around the borders of this old sea, which 
clearly show the marks of deposition in water. 

We have already spoken of the former limited en- 
largement of the glaciers in the Tian Shan and other 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 311 

surrounding mountains in Central Asia. At first 
thought it might seem that the conditions causing this 
enlargement of the glaciers were the cause of the 
inland sea covering the Desert of Gobi, for the en- 
largement of the glaciers implies either an increased 
precipitation or a diminution in temperature involving a 
diminution of evaporation, or both. On the other hand, 
it may be plausibly urged that the enlargement of the 
glaciers is the effect of the inland sea, rather than the 
cause ; for it is this very enlargement of the inland sea 
which would provide the increased evaporating surface 
needed to supply the increased precipitation upon the 
surrounding mountains. 

Upon following out this theory in all its details, it 
is surprising how many mysteries it unlocks. Sup- 
posing a general subsidence in Central Asia such as to 
let in the waters of the sea all over the Aral-Caspian 
depression, and over the adjoining plains of Siberia up 
to the level of the Sungarian depression in the line of 
the Irtysh River, and of Lake Baikal in the line of the 
Angara, we should have the vast interior basin of the 
Gobi Desert filled with water connected with the ocean. 
The existence of such an expanse of water, as already 
remarked, readily accounts ( 1 ) for the anomalous dis- 
persion of Arctic seal, so that they now remain denizens 



312 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

of isolated bodies of water as far separated from the 
ocean and from each other as are Lake Baikal and the 
Aral and Caspian seas; and there seems no other expla- 
nation of this anomaly. 

(2) The presence of this vast expanse of water in 
Central Asia would likewise readily account, as we 
have just remarked, for the increase of the glaciers in 
the Altai and Tian Shan Mountains, since it is well 
known that increased moisture in the air is even more 
essential to the growth of glaciers than a lowering of 
the temperature. A heavy snowfall is one of the most 
important factors in the production of a glacial epoch. 

(3) But it is in its relation to a diminishing rain- 
fall of the Aral-Caspian basin that this theory furnishes 
the most important key to a complicated problem. In 
reflecting upon the evidence that the Aral Sea formerly 
overflowed into the Caspian, and the Caspian into the 
Sea of Azov, one cannot fail to ask how it came to be 
that the Amu Daria and the Syr Daria, the two great 
tributaries, should formerly have doubled their flow of 
water, and then gradually diminished to the present 
proportion. Our theory solves the riddle. Upon the 
reelevation of the continent, so that the waters of the 
invading ocean could no longer penetrate to the inland 
sea through the Sungarian depression, the desiccation 
of that region began. For a long time the evaporation 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 313 

over the inland sea furnished the necessary moisture to 
keep up the enlarged flow of the rivers upon the north 
side of the Tian Shan Mountains. But, as about half 
of the water precipitated upon these mountains would 
flow off into the Aral-Caspian depression and the Arctic 
basin, and only one-half flow back into the inland sea, 
the water would gradually diminish, and in diminish- 
ing would deprive the rivers upon the other side of the 
mountains of their normal supply, until the present 
inadequate flow was reached. 

In the same manner, also, we may account for the 
limited glacier that formerly came down from the sum- 
mit of the Lebanon Mountains into the head of the 
Kadisha Valley, and built up the moraine upon which 
the surviving grove of the cedars of Lebanon is now 
growing. 6 In speaking of the former extension of the 
Dead Sea until it filled the whole Jordan Valley to a 
depth of seven hundred and fifty, and probably fourteen 
hundred, feet, reference was made to the Glacial epoch 
as the probably cause of this enlargement of these in- 
land waters. But, as the only signs of glaciation in the 
Lebanon Mountains are around the summit level which 
drains into the Mediterranean, the two things can be 
only indirectly related. As in the case of the glaciers 
of the Tian Shan Mountains, may it not be quite as 
likely that the glaciers of the Lebanon Mountains were 



314 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

caused by the increased evaporating surface of the body 
of water which filled the Jordan Valley as it emerged 
from the general depression to which we have referred 
the Deluge? 

Tradition has long pointed to Central Asia as the 
original .home of mankind, and evidence accumulates 
going to show that the conditions of life were once more 
favorable in that region than they are at the present 
time. Large tracts of land in Central Asia are now 
arid and barren which once supported a dense popula- 
tion, while many of the races of mankind certainly 
migrated from that region. The spread of the Indo- 
European or Aryan language is one of the most striking 
evidences that Central Asia was the original home of 
mankind. These languages include the classic and 
nearly all the modern languages of Europe and that 
of Persia, together with the Sanscrit, the sacred lan- 
guage of India. The evidence is irresistible that before 
the dispersion of the people speaking these languages 
they dwelt together as a pastoral people in the high- 
lands on the southern border of the Aral-Caspian de- 
pression. 

From this same center may be traced in successive 
waves of emigration the various Tartar races which 
have been consolidated into the great empires of Eastern 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 315 

Asia, and, penetrating into the more inhospitable re- 
gions of the north, reached Finland upon the one hand 
and Bering Strait upon the other, passing thence into 
America. One traveling in Central Asia even now 
will often be startled by the resemblance of the natives 
to the North American Indians. 

Surging back from the eastern borders of Asia, these 
restless tribes of Tartars have repeatedly overwhelmed 
their original home, and rolled in a wave of conquest 
into Europe, where the Huns have left their perma- 
nent mark upon Western civilization. The followers 
of Jenghiz Khan, coming from Northeastern Mongolia, 
swept over all Central and Western Asia, and were 
only stayed in their destruction by fierce battles fought 
on the plains of Hungary and Poland. At the time of 
the conquest of Jenghiz Khan, Merv and Samarkand 
and Balkh were cities rivaling in population and mag- 
nificence all but a few of the commercial capitals of 
modern times. 

MORE POSITIVE EVIDENCE. 

But the most definite evidence of a recent consider- 
able depression of this general area arrested our atten- 
tion in 1900 at Trebizond, on the south shore of the 
Black Sea. Here, at an elevation of six hundred and 
fifty feet above the sea, there is an extensive deposit of 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 317 

beach gravel clinging to the side of the volcanic mass 
of rocks at whose base the city is built. The appearance 
of the gravel is so fresh as to compel a belief in its re- 
cent origin, while it has certainly been deposited by a 
body of water standing at that elevation after the rock, 
erosion of the region had been almost entirely effected. 
The gravel deposit is about one hundred feet thick, and 
extends along the precipitous face of the mountain for 
a half mile or more. Some scattered gravel was found 
at a height of seven hundred and fifty feet. But the 
level summit of the mountain, at an elevation of eight 
hundred and fifty feet, was completely free from it. 
Professor Charles R. Keyes writes me that, in his ex- 
cursion with the Russian geologists during the interna- 
tional convention of 1899, he observed extensive raised 
beaches of corresponding height at Soudak, on the 
south shore of the Crimea, nearly opposite to Trebi- 
zond. 

It needs but a glance at a map of the region, in any 
physical geography, to show that such a depression as 
would bring the south shore of the Black Sea down to 
seven hundred and fifty feet below its present level 
would produce an uninterrupted sea from there to the 
Arctic Ocean, thus covering with water all the plains 
of Southern Russia and Northern Siberia. Now, it is 
in just this submerged area of Southern Russia that we 



3 1 8 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

find another most extensive and important deposit of 
loess such as we have described in Northern China, and 
Turkestan. This is known and generally referred to 
as the " black earth " of Southern Russia, and consti- 
tutes its most fertile area. As to the origin of this, the 
Russian geologists inform us that, in their opinion, as 
in ours, whatever may be true of the loess deposits in 
China, not wind, but water, must have been the agency 
by which that of Russia was mainly distributed. 7 

REMAINS OF ANTEDILUVIAN MAN. 

This brings us to the point of supreme interest. At 
Kief, on the Dnieper, one of the largest tributaries of 
the Black Sea, Professor Armaschevsky has found hu- 
man implements and burnt stones, in connection with 
the bones of extinct animals, at a depth of fifty-three 
feet below the undisturbed surface of the loess which 
covers the region. The facts he has fully described in 
a pamphlet prepared for the World's .Geological Con- 
gress which met in Russia in 1899. The professor was 
so good as to conduct us over the field, and explain the 
entire situation to us. If there had been any doubts in 
our minds as to the significance of the facts before this 
explanation, there could be none after. 

This was at an elevation of three hundred feet above 
the Dnieper River, where an old camping place of 




Bluff of Loess at Kief, Russia. 
This bluff caps a glacial deposit, 250 feet above the Dnieper 
River. The human remains were found at the base of the 
loess, 51 feet below the surface. (Photograph bv G. F. 
Wright.) 



320 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

palaeolithic man rested on the surface of a glacial de- 
posit containing granitic pebbles from Scandinavia, sev- 
eral hundred miles distant. 

Other evidence of a recent submergence of Northern 
and Central Asia is reported by J. Stadling s near the 
mouth of the Lena River, and ten miles back from it, 
where he found, six hundred feet above the sea, " in a 
layer of soil composed of turf and mud mixed with sand, 
resting on a foundation of solid ice as clean and blue 
as steel and of unknown depth, large quantities of drift- 
wood, evidently brought down by the river at the re- 
mote period when it had its course here." Still another 
instance is one (which I have elsewhere described 9 ) 
in the lower part of the Dariel pass, on the north side 
of the Caucasus Mountains, where there are extensive 
fluviatile deposits of such character as to indicate a 
great change in the relative level of the gorge in cor- 
respondingly recent times. In the same line of evidence 
is the report of Professor John J. Stevenson upon re- 
cent changes of level in Spitzbergen. The facts are, 
that towards the close of the Tertiary period there was 
clearly a rapid elevation of the land, amounting possibly 
to four thousand feet, which was followed by a subsi- 
dence of still greater extent ; while now the land is 
slowly regaining its original level. Raised terraces and 



Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 321 

sandy beaches of recent origin bear witness to this in 
many places. 10 

All these things point to the fact that in those world- 
wide movements which characterized the latter part of 
the Tertiary and the whole of the Glacial period, there 
was a brief subsidence of the Asiatic continent — Cen- 
tral Asia, perhaps, playing see-saw with Northwestern 
Europe and Northeastern America, the one going down 
while the other went up. But, however that might be, 
at some stage during this late period of geological insta- 
bility, a general depression of Central Asia must have 
occurred to account for the phenomena we have pre- 
sented, distributing the loess in the peculiar manner 
indicated and filling the central depression of Mon- 
golia with an interior sea. 

It is beyond legitimate question, therefore, that, since 
man was a resident in Southern Russia, there has oc- 
curred the great subsidence which occasioned the wide- 
spread and rapid accumulation of loess over that vast 
area which we have been describing, thus bringing the 
facts in Southern Russia and Central Asia into chrono- 
logical harmony with those in Western Europe and 
North America, where the remains of glacial man have 
been known to exist. Early man certainly witnessed in 
the eastern continent changes of land-level causing 
floods on a scale such as the race has not been familiar 



322 Evidence of a Deluge in Asia. 

with for several thousand years. Man undoubtedly 
came into the world before the unstable equilibrium 
accompanying late Tertiary time and the whole course 
of the Glacial epoch had given place to the compara- 
tive quiet which now prevails. 



The Deluge in North America. 323 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE DELUGE IN NORTH AMERICA. 

For a long time the public has been familiar with the 
fact that the Glacial epoch in North America was suc- 
ceeded by an extensive depression of land in the north- 
ern part, permitting water to overflow a large area in 
the eastern portion of the continent lying north of the 
Canada line. From the prominence of the facts in the 
Champlain Valley, Professor James D. Dana early 
gave to the period of this depression the name of the 
Champlain epoch. Abundant sea-shells are found, at 
various elevations in the Champlain Valley, superim- 
posed upon the ordinary glacial deposits. The skeleton 
of a whale was found, many years ago, in the Champlain 
clays of Vermont, at an elevation of three hundred or 
four hundred feet above the sea; while shore-lines of 
this arm of the ocean are clearly traceable upon both 
the Adirondack and the Green Mountains, which form 
borders upon the opposite sides of the valley. Near the 
Canada line, and at Montreal, these post-glacial sea- 
beaches, with their accompanying sea-shells, occur to a 
height of six hundred feet; while, at Arnprior, far up 



324 The Deluge in North America. 

the Ottawa River, at an equal elevation, the skeleton 
of a whale has been found in post-glacial clay deposits. 
Evidently, therefore, at the melting-off of the glacier 
from Eastern North America, the Gulf of St. Lawrence 
extended so as to make a continuous sheet of water from 
the ocean to the Great Lakes. Going farther north, 
this depression of land increased in extent, amounting 
to one thousand feet or more in the region northeast of 
Hudson Bay. So far the facts correspond somewhat 
closely with those we have presented pertaining to the 
post-glacial depressions of land-levels in Europe and 
Asia. 

But there is another class of facts, of extreme interest, 
dependent upon the physical geography of the country, 
which, if they do not have a direct bearing upon our 
subject, do have a very important indirect bearing upon 
it. We refer to the remarkable series of temporary 
lakes which were formed along the southern edge of 
the ice as its front slowly receded f^om its extreme 
southerly extension. 1 At the climax of the Glacial 
epoch in North America, the continental glacier ex- 
tended to an irregular line drawn along the southern 
coast of New England, passing just south of New 
York City, and in irregular course through New Jer- 
sey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, until, at Cincinnati, it 
crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky, and thence 



The Deluge in North America. 325 

passed westward with various irregularities until it 
reached its most southern point, at Carbondale, 111., in 
about latitude 38 °. Thence, passing northwesterly, it 
crossed the Mississippi River for a little at St. Louis, 
but followed closely the northern shore of the river for 
more than half the distance across the State of Missouri. 
Crossing it. however, for a little distance below the 
sharp angle made by the river at Kansas City, it follows 
the Kansas River as far west as Topeka, whence it 
turns northward, and, bearing a little to the west, 
reaches the Canadian line in Montana, and there joins 
the boundary of the Cordilleran lobe of ice, which came 
down the border of the Pacific Ocean. A glance at the 
accompanying map, in which the various stages of the 
glacier are shown by dotted lines, will reveal the facts 
better than any amount of verbal description. It will 
be in place, however, briefly to outline the several gla- 
cial lakes which attended this recession, and which have 
been variously named as the facts have come to light. 
1. Lake Ohio. — This was formed by the damming 
of the Ohio River at Cincinnati, when the front of the 
glacier crossed over into Kentucky. During a short 
time this obstruction to the channel existed through a 
length of nearly one hundred miles. Such an obstruc- 
tion would pond up the water in the valley above to a 
depth of five hundred feet, flooding an area of nearly 



The Deluge in North America. 327 

twenty thousand square miles, and producing a depth 
of water over Pittsburgh of nearly three hundred feet. 
Professor E. W. Claypole, in an article read before the 
Geological Society of Edinburgh and published in their 
" Transactions," has given a very vivid description of 
the vicissitudes of this remarkable body of water: — - 

" The Ohio of to-day in flood is a terrible danger to 
the valley, but the Ohio then must have been a much 
more formidable river to the dwellers on its banks. The 
muddy waters rolled along, fed by innumerable rills of 
glacier-milk, and often charged with ice and stones. The 
first warm days of spring were the harbinger of the 
coming flood, which grew swifter and deeper as summer 
came, and only subsided as the falling temperature of 
autumn again locked up with frost the glacier fountains. 
. . . The ancient Ohio River system was in its higher 
part a multitude of glacial torrents rushing off the ice- 
sheet, carrying all before them, waxing strong beneath 
the rising sun, till in the afternoon the roar of the 
waters and their stony burden reached its maximum, 
and, as the sun slowly sank, again diminished, and 
gradually died away during the night, reaching its 
minimum at sunrise. . . . 

" But, with the steady amelioration of the climate, 
more violent and sudden floods ensued. The increasing 
heat of summer compelled the retreat of the ice from 
the Kentucky shore, where Covington and Newport 
now lie, and so lowered its surface that it fell below the 
previous outflow-point. The waters then took their 



328 The Deluge in North America. 

course over the dam, instead of passing, as formerly, 
up the Licking and down the Kentucky River Valley. 
The spectacle of a great ice-cascade, or of long ice- 
rapids, was then exhibited at Cincinnati. This cataract, 
or these rapids, must have been several hundred feet 
high. Down these cliffs or this slope the water dashed, 
melting its own channel, and breaking up the founda- 
tions of its own dam. With the depression of the dam 
the level of the lake also fell. Possibly the change was 
gradual, and the dam and the lake went gently down 
together. Possibly, but not probably, this was the case. 
Far more likely is it that the melting was rapid, and 
that it sapped the strength of the dam faster than it 
lowered the water. This will be more probable if we 
consider the immense area to be drained. The catastro- 
phe was then inevitable — the dam broke, and all the 
accumulated water of Lake Ohio was poured through 
the gap. Days or even weeks must have passed before 
it was all gone; but at last its bed was dry. The upper 
Ohio Valley was free from water, and Lake Ohio had 
passed away. . . . 

" But the whole tale is not yet told. Not once only 
did these tremendous floods occur. In the ensuing winter 
the dam was repaired by the advancing ice, relieved 
from the melting effects of the sun and of the floods. 
Year after year was this conflict repeated. How often 
we cannot tell. But there came at last a summer when 
the Cincinnati dam was broken for the last time ; when 
the winter with its snow and ice failed to renew it, 
when the channel remained permanently clear, and 



The Deluge in North America. 329 

Lake Ohio had disappeared forever from the geography 
of North America. . . . 

"How many years or ages this conflict between the 
lake and the dam continued it is quite impossible to 
say, but the quantity of wreckage found in the valley of 
the lower Ohio, and even in that of the Mississippi, 
below their point of junction, is sufficient to convince 
us that it was no short time. ' The age of Great 
Floods ' formed a striking episode in the story of the 
' Retreat of the Ice.' Long afterward must the valley 
have borne the marks of these disastrous torrents, far 
surpassing in intensity anything now known on the 
earth. The great flood of 1885, when the ice-laden 
water slowly rose seventy-three feet above low-water 
mark, will long be remembered by Cincinnati and her 
inhabitants. But that flood, terrible as it was, sinks into 
insignificance beside the furious torrent caused by the 
sudden, even though partial, breach of an ice-dam hun- 
dreds of feet in height, and the discharge of a body of 
water held behind it, and forming a lake of twenty 
thousand square miles in extent. 

" To the human dwellers in the Ohio Valley — for 
we have reason to believe that the valley was in that day 
tenanted by man — these floods must have proved dis- 
astrous in the extreme. It is scarcely likely that they 
were often forecast. The whole population of the bot- 
tom lands must have been repeatedly swept away; and 
it is far from being unlikely that in these and other 
similar catastrophes in different parts of the world, 
which characterized certain stages in the glacial era, 



330 The Deluge in North America. 

will be found the far-off basis on which rest those tra- 
ditions of a flood that are found among almost all 
savage nations, especially in the north temperate zone." 

2. Lake Warren. — This is named from its discover- 
er, General Warren, of the United States Army. When 
the ice-front had retreated beyond the watershed be- 
tween the basins of the Mississippi and the St. Law- 
rence, there began to be an accumulation of water along 
its margin, which gradually enlarged until it covered 
the whole area now occupied by the valleys of Lake 
Erie, Lake Ontario, and Lake Huron, the outlet being, 
first, at Fort Wayne, into the Wabash River, at an 
elevation of two hundred feet above Lake Erie (775 
above the sea), and later, as the ice melted off from 
the lower peninsula of Michigan, through a passage 
leading from Saginaw Bay through Grand River into 
a body of water that was formed in a similar manner, 
covering the southern part of Lake Michigan. This 
outlet was one hundred feet lower than the one at Fort 
Wayne. Thence the mighty torrent poured along the 
line of the present drainage canal, a few feet above the 
level of Chicago, into the Illinois River, and onward 
into the Mississippi. The receding shore-lines of this 
vast body of water are clearly traceable all around 
the southern shores of Lake Erie, and up to Saginaw 
Bay, in Lake Michigan; while the deserted channels 



The Deluge in North America. 331 

at Fort Wayne, and through the Grand River Valley, 
and along the line of the Chicago Drainage Canal are 
as clearly marked as those of any existing river. 

3. Lake Algonquin. — This is the name given to 
the body of water in front of the retreating ice whose 
level was determined by that of the pass from the Lake 
Ontario basin into the Mohawk River at Rome, N. Y. 
For a long while the mighty current swept through the 
Mohawk Valley into the Hudson, leaving its traces in 
extensive gravel terraces clearly discernible from fifty 
to one hundred feet above the present river. As the 
retreat of the ice proceeded, this body found an outlet, 
at a lower level, around the eastern base of the Adiron- 
dack Mountains, through the Champlain Valley. At 
Chazy, N. Y., immense windrows of water-worn peb- 
bles and boulders can be traced where this stream 
passed through a depression between the melting lobe 
of ice on one side and the mountain on the other. 
Eventually this lake merged into the gulf which, as 
already said, extended up the St. Lawrence Valley at 
the time of the Champlain depression, when whales 
sported in those inland waters. 

4. Lake Agassiz. — Passing over innumerable minor 
details, we will limit ourselves to a brief statement of 
the facts concerning the vast accumulation of water 
which formed in front of the retreating glacier in the 



332 The Deluge in North America. 

valley of the Red River of the North, to which, very 
appropriately, has been given the name of Lake Agas- 
siz. Here, so long as the ice remained to obstruct the 
drainage that naturally flowed into Hudson Bay, the 
water rose to the level of the pass from the Red River 
Valley into the Minnesota through Grand Traverse 
and Big Stone lakes. These lakes, each fifteen or 
twenty miles long and about a mile in width, are upon 
the same level with each other, and occupy minor de- 
pressions in what was the outlet of the immense glacial 
lake. At its culmination, before the ice-barrier to the 
north eventually broke away, Lake Agassiz covered an 
area of one hundred thousand square miles, including 
what are now the most fertile portions of Minnesota, 
Dakota, and Manitoba. It has left a precious legacy 
to mankind in the vast alluvial deposits over its bot- 
tom, which now furnish the most important wheat- 
fields in the world. 

5. Lake Bonneville. — This was in Utah, and' is 
named for Captain Bonneville, the intrepid original ex- 
plorer of the region. Its modern representative, Great 
Salt Lake, has an area of only about two thousand 
square miles, with a depth of about twenty or thirty 
feet. But during the Glacial epoch, when the precipi- 
tation was greater and the evaporation less than now, 
the waters increased to a depth of one thousand feet. 



The Deluge in North America. 333 

and covered an area of twenty thousand square miles. 
When the water had attained this depth, it began to 
overflow through the Port Neuf River into the Snake 
River Valley, leading into the Columbia River and the 
Pacific Ocean. But at the point of overflow there was 
an accumulation of unconsolidated earthy debris to a 
depth of three hundred and seventy-five feet. This 
obstruction rapidly wore away, and the whole body of 
water down to that level rushed in an impetuous tor- 
rent into the valley of Snake River. 

Dr. G. K. Gilbert has given a vivid description of 
this in his monograph upon Lake Bonneville published 
by the United States Geological Survey; while I have, 
in " Man and the Glacial Period," detailed some of 
the more specific results of the gigantic flood as it 
poured down into the Snake River Valley. Dr. Gil- 
bert estimates that it would require twenty-five year^ 
for a stream as large as Niagara to lower the level of 
Lake Bonneville three hundred and seventy-five feet. 
When one sees the diminutive rivulet now known as 
the Port Neuf, the imagination is utterly balked in its 
efforts to picture a Niagara flowing through it. But 
that such was the case is proved beyond controversy 
by the dry light of science. 

The subsequent history of Lake Bonneville bears 
evidence, that, owing to the desiccation which followed 



334 The Deluge in North America. 

the Glacial epoch both in the eastern and western con- 
tinents, and to which we have already made frequent 
reference, gradually all the remaining body of water, to 
a depth of more than six hundred feet, has evaporated 
from the basin. Its deserted shore-lines, like railroad 
embankments, surround the valley and the mountains 
projecting from the basin, and form conspicuous ob- 
jects in the landscape. 

6. Lake Lahontan. — To the west of the Lake 
Bonneville basin a body of water of about equal size 
accumulated during the Glacial epoch, but never rose 
high enough to overflow. This is named Lake Lahon- 
tan, after another early explorer of this region, and has 
been fully described, in a monograph of the United 
States Geological Survey, by the late Professor Israel 
C. Russell. But it is not important here to go into 
details. 

One of the most interesting of all the recently dis- 
covered evidences of the vast extent of glacial floods is 
that which was brought to light in 1903 respecting those 
of the Missouri River Valley. The facts are so striking 
and pertinent, as well as new, that it will be profit- 
able to detail them at some length. In tracing the 
boundary of the glaciated region of the United States 
twenty years or more ago, it was discovered that west 



The Deluge in North America. 335 

of the Mississippi River the continental glacier did not 
cross the Missouri River below Jefferson City. The 
testimony of the various geologists who had surveyed 
the region was very uniform upon this point. But in 
1902 Dr. Ball, who was employed by the State to make 
a geological survey of Miller County, reported that 




Cross-section of the Osage Trough at Tuscumbia, with a 
Canadian Boulder. 



several large Canadian boulders were to be found at 
Tuscumbia, in the trough of the Osage River, about 
sixty miles above its junction with the Missouri, and 
fully forty miles south of the extreme limit reached 
by the continental glacier. Here . was presented a 
problem of the greatest perplexity and interest, so that 
it was worth while for me to devote the summer of 
1903 to its solution. 

To account for these boulders, there were four, and 
only four, suppositions possible. 

1. That there were outcrops of similar granite in 



336 The Deluge in North America. 

the vicinity, so that the river floods could have brought 
the boulders into the places where they were found. 
But this was negatived by the unanimous testimony of 
the geologists who had carefully surveyed the region, 
that there are no outcrops of such granite in the State. 
Moreover, Dr. Robert Bell, Director of the Canadian 
Survey, at once recognized the specimens as from Can- 
ada, which is several hundred miles away. 

2. It might be supposed that there had been an 
error in previous observations on the limit of the gla- 
ciated area. The border south of the Missouri River 
was therefore resurveyed, with results conforming to 
those that had been previously obtained. There were 
no signs of an invasion of the continental glacier south 
of the river below Jefferson City. 

3. It might be supposed that glacial ice had crossed 
the watershed between the Kansas River and the head- 
waters of the Osage River below Topeka, Kansas, 
where it was known to have reached the vicinity dur- 
ing its greatest extension. Under this theory, floating 
ice might have carried the boulders down to the lower 
part of the Osage River and, becoming stranded there, 
left them where they were found. But this theory was 
negatived by a resurvey of this region, which confirmed 
all previous observations that the Kansas River marked 
the southern limit of the glaciated region in Kansas. 



The Deluge in North America. 337 

4. The only supposition remaining was, that, dur- 
ing high glacial floods in the Missouri River when there 
were no corresponding ones in the Osage, back-water 
had carried small boulder-bearing icebergs from the 
Missouri sixty miles up the Osage, where they had been 
stranded, and, on melting, left the boulders as indubi- 
table witnesses of a most startling geological episode. 
From the height at which the boulders at Tuscumbia 
were lying, it was necessary to suppose that the Mis- 
souri River was at that time subject to floods which 
rose two hundred feet, while the Osage had none to 
correspond. If such a condition of things could be rea- 
sonably, or even possibly, supposed, it would be suffi- 
cient to account for the phenomena ; while, in the ab- 
sence of any competing theory, this must be accepted 
as proved beyond a reasonable doubt. 

It is a well-known fact that a rise in the main stream 
without a corresponding rise in the tributary causes a 
current to set back up the tributary, and so carry debris 
up stream. A case near my ancestral home had early 
attracted my attention. Poultney River, in Vermont, 
which comes into the head of Lake Champlain, was at 
one time visited by a series of terrific thunder-showers, 
while one of its tributaries, Hubbardston Creek, was 
out of their reach. As a consequence, the main stream 
rose thirty or forty feet, and set up the creek with such 



338 The Deluge in North America. 

force that it carried a mill-dam up stream. Instances 
of this sort could be multiplied indefinitely. 

From the melting of snow in the Rocky Mountains, 
the Columbia River, in Oregon, often rises thirty or 
forty feet when its southern tributary, the Willamette, 
has reached its period of low water. At such times 
a current sets up the tributary, carrying driftwood 
past Portland, fifty or sixty miles from the Columbia. 
Similar phenomena are regularly witnessed in some of 
the tributaries of the Danube. 

In the present case, there was, at the close of the 
Glacial epoch, a unique condition of things in the 
lower Missouri Valley. A glance at a glacial map of 
the region will show that about 250,000 square miles 
of the glaciated region would drain its surplus water 
into the trough of the middle Missouri. On a moder- 
ate calculation, the melting of the ice over this area 
towards the close of the period may have proceeded at 
the rate of ten feet per annum. This would furnish 
five hundred cubic miles of water for the lower Mis- 
souri River to handle each year between April and 
November; whereas now its total annual flow, as 
determined by the United States engineers, is only 
twenty-eight cubic miles; and yet, with that small 
amount, floods often rise to a height of thirty-six feet 
above low water. That there was, for a period of con- 



The Deluge in North America. 339 

siderable length, a supply of five hundred cubic miles of 
water to the Missouri to be carried off during the sum- 
mer and autumn months is a most reasonable supposi- 
tion, supported by a large number of well-known facts. 
It is equally clear that, at this time, there were no 
causes to supply a corresponding rise of the Osage, 
since it lies wholly outside the glaciated region, and had 
no ice over its basin to be melted, and thus augment 
its volume. 

On proceeding to work out the problem of the be- 
havior of this vast body of water poured into the mid- 
dle Missouri, it was first observed that it all had to pass 
through a narrow place in the trough at Hermon, 
twenty-five miles below the mouth of the Osage. Here 
the width of the trough between the rocky precipices, 
three hundred feet high on either side, is barely two 
miles. Mathematical calculations will show that it 
would require ninety-six days for a current two miles 
wide and two hundred feet deep, flowing three miles an 
hour, to carry off five hundred cubic miles of water. 
But as the supply of water would be in gradually in- 
creasing amount up to a little past mid-summer, and 
then as gradually decreasing, the average depth would 
be only half that, with a short period of extreme height. 
It would therefore require one hundred and ninety-two 



^ 



^— 4J 




%, 






&*>*ga*0L 



v ^:. 



c. ' 7. 



m 






i&bitikH 



M 



The Deluge in North America. 341 

days to reduce the level to normal conditions, leaving 
scarcely any flow during the winter months. 

In order to secure this moderate rate of three miles 
an hour, we must suppose, however, that the gradient 
of the stream was then considerably less than that of 
the Missouri at the present time. But this supposition 
is most reasonable, in view of well-known facts. For, 
as already shown, there is abundant evidence that, 
toward the close of the Glacial epoch, there was a 
depression of land over nearly all the glaciated area, and 
that this depression increased toward the north. At 
Montreal we know the land was six hundred feet lower 
at the close of the Glacial epoch than it is now. There 
is corresponding evidence of such a northerly depression 
around the Great Lakes and in Manitoba and Northern 
Minnesota. That this included, in diminishing degree, 
the whole glaciated area down to the middle of the 
State of Missouri, is in accordance with the whole anal- 
ogy of the downward movement of the crust of the 
earth which accompanied, and perhaps was caused by. 
the accumulation of ice over it. Moreover, this sup- 
posed diminution of the gradient of the lower Missouri 
would be aided by the corresponding floods in the upper 
Mississippi and in the Ohio, which would, at the same 
time and from the same causes, raise the level of the 



342 The Deluge in North America. 

outlet of the Missouri. We are therefore perfectly 
warranted in assuming this necessary lower gradient. 

Under this supposition, the course of events can be 
easily outlined. Beginning with May of each year, 
the water from the melting ice over 250,000 square 
miles of territory would pour into the middle Missouri 
in increasing quantities until the middle of August, 
when it would attain a depth of two hundred feet, and 
spread out over all the adjacent country in a vast lake- 
like expanse. Into the central current, frequent ice- 
floes, or small icebergs, with Canadian boulders in their 
frozen grasp, would find their way, and float down- 
wards to the mouth of the Osage River. There, find- 
ing no counter-current, they could easily be carried up 
the trough as far as Tuscumbia, and stranded on the 
banks one hundred feet above the ordinary level of the 
Missouri. Thus was the problem solved without a 
flaw in the argument, or the use of a supposition which 
is at all unreasonable or out of analogy with the facts. 

But this is not all. The supposition of such a re- 
curring temporary lake over the middle Missouri Val- 
ley is necessary to account for the peculiar distribution 
of the loess along the borders of its trough from Da- 
kota to Kansas City. This deposit occurs to a re- 
markable extent all along either margin of the trough 
of the Missouri River, being more than one hundred 



The Deluge in North America. 343 

feet thick at Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Omaha, St. 
Joseph, and Kansas City, Mo. Indeed, at St. Joseph, 
it is more than two hundred feet thick. Back from the 
margin the loess covers the area up to the level of about 
two hundred feet, but gradually thins out, and merges 
into ordinary clay or loam. As already said, however, 
the loess is not a clay, but an extremely fine sand, with 
a small amount of clay and lime intermingled. It 
contains few, if any, lacustrine shells, but many species 
of snail-shells, such as are now found in the vicinity, 
and flourish on the flood-plains of the streams. The 
character of these shells, and the difficulty of imagining 
a body of water from which the sediment could be de- 
rived, and of finding an adequate source for the water 
required, have led many to suppose that the loess was 
brought into its present peculiar position by the wind. 
It is suggested that during the floods of the Glacial 
epoch (which were supposed to be much more moderate 
than present facts prove them to have been), silt from 
the glaciated area was deposited over the flood-plain of 
the river, and from there blown up by the wind to the 
positions now occupied by it. 

But in the Missouri Valley the primary agency of 
wind in the distribution of the loess is negatived by the 
fact that, while the prevailing winds are from the 
southwest, the loess is found on both sides of the river 



344 The Deluge in North America. 

in about equal amounts, and also by the fact that it 
frequently occurs in level-topped terraces, such as could 
be formed only under water action. Finally, the posi- 
tive evidence of recurring floods two hundred feet or 
more high in the Missouri, adduced from the occur- 
rence of the Canadian boulders at Tuscumbia, comes in 
with convincing weight to furnish the vera causa, which 
had before been lacking. The temporary body of wa- 
ter which we suppose to have spread over the area 
covered by the loess necessarily contained a moving 
stream along the present course of the river. This 
would bring in the supply of sediment from the gla- 
ciated region needed to account for the special promi- 
nence of the deposit along the margin of the trough. 
It had been a valid objection to the theory of a standing 
body of water over the area, that the sediment would all 
be deposited around the northern margin ; whereas it 
occurs .in greatest excess for several hundred miles 
along the middle of the lacustrine area. This could be 
the case only if there was such a movement of water 
through it as our theory supposes. 2 Furthermore, the 
temporary and recurring nature of the flood would ac- 
count for the absence of lacustrine shells and the pres- 
ence of land-shells, for they flourish in special degree 
on flood-plains which are only occasionally submerged 
for a short time. 



346 



The Deluge in North America. 



While these conclusions are of great importance in 
illustrating the general fact of the increased activity of 
certain natural forces during the Glacial epoch, they 
assume special importance, in the present discussion, 
from the fact that at Lansing, Kansas, near Leaven- 




Stratified Loess at St. Joseph, Mo., 200 ft. Above the River. 
(Photograph by Miss Luella A. Owen.) 

worth, a human skeleton was found buried at the base 
of an undisturbed section of this loess, showing that 
man was in the valley of the Missouri River before 
these floods attained their climax, and was, very likely, 



The Deluge in North America. 347 

exterminated by them. Thus is added another instance 
to the many which can be adduced to show the destruc- 
tive power of the floods which accompanied the close of 
the Glacial epoch during the period of man's existence 
both in the Old World and in the New. 3 

In view of these facts, it will appear that it is not 
an altogether improbable theory that, at the time of 
the Deluge, man had been largely exterminated by 
natural forces; so that he was then limited to a 
comparatively small area in Central Asia. In such 
extermination, he would only have shared the fate of a 
large number of animals that failed to survive the 
world-wide physical changes which accompanied the 
Glacial epoch. For it is well known that on both con- 
tinents, at the close of the Tertiary period, there oc- 
curred a remarkable extinction of animals which is 
doubtless connected with the advance of the continental 
ice-sheet. Among these we may mention two species 
of the cat family as large as lions; four species of the 
dog family, some of them larger than wolves; two 
species of bears; a walrus, found in Virginia; three 
species of dolphins, found in the Eastern States; two 
species of the sea-cow, found in Florida and South 
Carolina; six species of the horse; the existing South 
American tapir, a species of the South American llama; 



348 The Deluge in North America. 

a camel ; two species of bison ; three species of sheep ; 
two species of elephants and two of mastodons; a 
species of megatherium, three of megalonyx, and one 
of mylodon — huge terrestial sloths as large as the rhi- 
noceros, or even as large as elephants, which ranged 
over the Southern States to Pennsylvania, and the my- 
lodon as far as the Great Lakes and Oregon. 

In the Old World the assemblage of animals which 
were contemporary with glacial man, but became ex- 
tinct in the temperate zone, is equally remarkable. It 
includes gigantic species of lion, tiger, leopard, hyena, 
bear, elk, musk-sheep, and reindeer, while the hippopot- 
amus ranged as far north as Yorkshire, England, and, 
as we have seen, fed in vast herds on the plains of 
Sicily. But most striking of all is the case of the ele- 
phant. One species only four or five feet in height 
abounded in Malta and Sicily, and one in Malta that 
was less than three feet in height ; a large species wan- 
dered as far north as Yorkshire, England; while the 
largest of all, the mammoth, spread over all Western 
and Central Europe, and fairly swarmed over the 
plains of Siberia and the adjacent islands. A brisk 
trade in ivory from their tusks is still kept up between 
Siberia and China. So recently has the mammoth be- 
come extinct in Siberia, that individuals are occasionally 
found, frozen in the ice, with their flesh still undecayed. 



The Deluge in North America. 



349 




Mammoth from Siberia mounted in the Museum at St. 
Petersburg. 



This mammoth was found in the year 1900. Its skin 
and skeleton were transported to St. Petersburg by Mr. I. P. 
Tolmatschow. The carcass was at the bottom of a steep 
slope which rises to a height of 170 feet above the flood-plain 
of the Beresowka River. At this height a terrace stretches 
back for half a mile, where the land rises 300 or 400 feet 
higher to the general level of a forest-covered plain. The 
mammoth was completely enveloped in the frozen soil until 
washed out by the river. The appearance was as if, in 
stretching out to reach twigs, he had slid down backward in 
the position shown in the illustration, and there perished, to 
be frozen into the accumulating ice, and preserved for an un- 
known period of time. 



350 The Deluge in North America. 

The accompanying illustrations speak louder than 
words. The specimen now mounted in the St. Peters- 
burg Museum was found at the base of an ice cliff, 
covered with soil, on the Beresowka, which enters the 
Arctic Ocean east of the Lena. The climatic changes 
which first permitted this animal to flourish over this 
northern region and then led to his extermination are 
the most puzzling among the unsolved unscientific mys- 
teries. 

This wondrous assemblage of animals became extinct 
in connection with the Glacial epoch, as their re- 
mains are all found in post-Pliocene deposits. The 
intermingling of forms is remarkable. The horses, 
camels, and elephants which lived in North America 
before the Glacial epoch were found subsequent to it 
only in the Old World, while the llamas, tapirs, and 
gigantic Edendata are South American types. The 
progress of events seems to have been about as follows : 
In the warm period preceding the Glacial epoch, when 
the vegetation of the temperate zone flourished about 
the north pole, there was land connection across Be- 
ring Strait, permitting the larger species of the Old 
World to migrate to North America. At the same 
time the conditions in North America were favorable 
to the tropical species of animals which had developed 



The Deluge in North America. 351 

and flourished in South America. The refrigeration of 
the climate on the approach of the Glacial epoch, and 
the advance of the ice from the north, cut off retreat to 
the Old World species, and gradually hemmed them in 
over the southern portion of the continent, where all 
forms of life were compelled to readjust themselves to 
new conditions. The struggle for existence probably 
resulted, first, in the extinction of those South Ameri- 
can species which had invaded North America during 
the warmer climate of later Tertiary times; since the 
more hardy emigrants from the north would have the 
advantage from the similarity in climate in the south- 
ern United States during the Glacial epoch to that 
about the poles, where they had flourished immediately 
before. With the withdrawal of ice to the north, the 
struggle of the animals with the conditions of existence 
began anew, and the mammoth and some others found 
themselves unable to cope with the changes to which 
they were compelled to adjust themselves. From the 
abundance of remains of these animals found in the 
peat-bogs of kettle-holes and in the glacial terraces of 
gravel and loess, it is evident that they followed close 
upon the retreating ice-front, and some of them con- 
tinued the retreat to the Arctic Circle, where they still 
live and flourish; while others, .like the elephant and 
mastodon, perished. 



352 The Deluge in North America. 

Few things are better calculated to impress the sci- 
entific imagination than this dispersion and final extinc- 
tion in North America of so many large animals native 
to the Old World ; while some of them, like the horse, 
were admirably adapted to the present conditions, as 
is shown by their rapid increase since their introduction 
after the discovery of America by the whites. In pre- 
ceding pages we have already seen that man himself 
participated in this struggle with the new conditions 
introduced by the Glacial epoch on this continent, and 
that, in company with the mammoth, walrus, and other 
arctic species, he followed up the retreating ice both 
upon the Atlantic coast and in the Mississippi Valley. 
Whether, like some of his companions, he was unsuc- 
cessful in the contest, is not certain, though there is 
much to be said in favor of the theory that the Eski- 
mos of the north are the lineal descendants of the p re- 
glacial men whose implements are found in New 
Jersey, Ohio, and Minnesota. 

Mr. Darwin early called attention to the more gen- 
eral evidence of a destruction of life during the Qua- 
ternary epoch in the southern hemisphere. During his 
voyage around the world in the Beagle, in 1833, ne 
encountered in Buenos Ayres the clear evidence which 
that region furnishes ,of the sweeping changes in forms 
of animal life which have taken place everywhere in 



The Deluge in North America. 353 

recent geological times. At the time of the discovery of 
America by Columbus, the horse was entirely absent 
from the continent ; but in those South American plains, 
where now immense herds of this animal run wild, and 
where it is no figure of speech to say that beggars ride 
horseback, there is abundant evidence that the horse, 
with a large number of immense quadrupeds associated 
with him, lived and flourished up to recent geological 
time, and then mysteriously disappeared. Among these 
companions of the horse in South America were the mas- 
todon, the megatherium, the megalonyx, a species of 
camel, the toxodon, and a hollow-horned ruminant 
closely allied to the European cattle. By comparison it 
will be seen that these are substantially the same spe- 
cies of animals which characterized North America at 
this same period, and whose bones are found in the re- 
cent geological deposits of California, of the Rocky 
Mountain plains and in Eastern United States. 

Commenting upon the cause of this, Darwin re- 
marks : — 

" We do not steadily bear in mind how profoundly 
ignorant we are of the conditions of existence of every 
animal, nor do we always remember that some check is 
constantly preventing the too rapid increase of every or- 
ganized being left in a state of nature. ... If asked 
how this is, one immediately replies that it is de- 



354 The Deluge in North America. 

termined by some slight difference in climate, food, or 
the number of enemies, yet how rarely, if ever, we can 
point out the precise cause and manner of action of the 
check! We are therefore driven to the conclusion thai- 
causes generally quite inappreciable by us determine 
whether a given species shall be abundant or scanty in 
numbers." 

After a careful survey of the facts relating to the 
extinction of species in post-Tertiary time, Professor 
Alfred Russel Wallace, in the first volume of his 
great work " The Geographical Distribution of Ani- 
mals," makes the following remarks, specially perti- 
nent to our subject : — 

" The first, and perhaps the most startling fact 
brought out by our systematic review, is the very re- 
cent and almost universal change that has taken place 
in the character of the fauna, over all the areas we 
have been considering; a change which seems to be al- 
together unprecedented in the past history of the same 
countries as revealed by the geological record. In 
Europe, in North America, and in South America, we 
have evidence that a very similar change occurred about 
the same time. In all three we find, in the most recent 
deposits — cave-earths, peat-bogs, and gravels — the re- 
mains of a whole series of large animals, which have 
since become wholly extinct or only survive in far- 
distant lands. In Europe, the great Irish elk, the 
Machairodus and cave-lion, the rhinoceros, hippopota- 



The Deluge in North America. 355 

mus, and elephant ; — in North America, equally large 
felines, horses and tapirs larger than any now living, a 
llama as large as a camel, great mastodons and ele- 
phants, and abundance of huge megatheroid animals 
of almost equal size; — in South America these same 
megatheroids in greater variety, numerous huge arma- 
dillos, a mastodon, large horses and tapirs, large por- 
cupines, two forms of antelope, numerous bears and 
felines, including a Machairodus, and a large monkey, 
— have all become extinct since the deposition of the 
most recent of the fossil-bearing strata. This is cer- 
tainly not a great while ago, geologically; and it is 
almost certain that this great organic revolution, im- 
plying physical changes of such vast proportions that 
they must have been due to causes of adequate in- 
tensity and proportionate range, has taken place since 
man lived on the earth. This is proved to have been 
the case in Europe, and is supported by much evidence 
both as regards North and South America. 

"It is clear that so complete and sudden a change 
in the higher forms of life, does not represent the nor- 
mal state of things. Species and genera have not, at 
all times, become so rapidly extinct. The time occu- 
pied by the ' Recent period,' that is the time since these 
changes took place, is, geologically, minute. The time 
of the whole of the post-Pliocene period, as measured 
by the amount of physical and general organic change 
known to have taken place, is exceedingly small when 
compared with the duration of the Pliocene period, and 
still smaller, probably, as compared with the Miocene. 



356 The Deluge in North America. 

Yet during these two periods we meet with no such 
break in the continuity of the forms of life, no such 
radical change in the character of the fauna (though 
the number of specific and generic changes may be as 
great) as we find in passing from the post-Pliocene to 
recent times. For example, in Central Europe numer- 
ous hyenas, rhinoceroses, and antelopes, with the- great 
Machairodus, continued from Miocene all through Pli- 
cene into post-Pliocene times ; while hippopotami and 
elephants continued to live through a good part of the 
Pliocene and post-Pliocene periods, — and then all sud- 
denly became extinct or left the country. In North 
America there has been more movement of the fauna 
in all the periods ; but we have similar great felines, 
horses, mastodons, and elephants, in the Pliocene and 
post-Pliocene periods, while Rhinoceros is common to 
the Miocene and Pliocene, and camels range continu- 
ously from Miocene, through Pliocene, to post-Pliocene 
times; — when all alike became extinct. Even in South 
America the evidence is, as far it goes, all the same way. 
We find Machairodus,, Equus, Mastodon, Megathe- 
rium, Scelidotherium, Megalonyx, and numerous gigan- 
tic armadillos, alike in the caves and in the stratified 
Tertiary deposits of the Pampas, — yet all have since 
passed away. 

" It is clear, therefore, that we are now in an alto- 
gether exceptional period of the earth's history. We 
live in a zoologically impoverished world, from which 
all the hugest, and fiercest, and strangest forms have 
recently disappeared ; and it is, no doubt, a much better 



The Deluge in North America. 357 

world for us now they have gone. Yet it is surely a 
marvelous fact, and one that has hardly been sufficiently 
dwelt upon, this sudden dying out of so many large 
mammalia, not in one place only but over half the 
land surface of the globe. We cannot but believe that 
there must have been some physical cause for this great 
change; and it must have been a cause capable of act- 
ing almost simultaneously over large portions of the 
earth's surface, and one which, as far as the Tertiary 
period at least is concerned, was of an exceptional 
character. Such a cause exists in the great and recent 
physical change known as the ' Glacial epoch ' " (pp. 
149-151). 

So far we have considered the facts concerning 
the Glacial epoch which relate merely to the northern 
hemisphere. The southern hemisphere also had its 
glacial epoch. A vast area surrounding the south pole 
is now enveloped in ice to even a greater extent than 
is Greenland, in the vicinity of the north pole. The 
southern part of South America still maintains a great 
array of mountain glaciers which are mere remnants of 
streams of ice that formerly deployed over the adjoining 
plains, and filled the channels of its neighboring archi- 
pelagoes. New Zealand, also, bears witness to a re- 
cent great enlargement of the glaciers which are still 
an attractive element in its mountain scenery. 

Whether the Glacial epoch in the southern hemi- 



358 The Deluge in North America. 

sphere was contemporaneous with that in the northern 
hemisphere is a matter somewhat in question. But the 
evidence strongly indicates that it was. If so, the esti- 
mates which we have made concerning the influence of 
the accumulation of ice during the Glacial epoch upon 
changes of land-level, and of the amount of water ab- 
stracted from the ocean, must be greatly increased, and 
the argument bearing on the influence of the Glacial 
epoch in so disturbing the conditions of animal life as 
to produce the extermination of species detailed above 
would be greatly strengthened. Indeed, Mr. Thomas 
Belt, one of the acutest students of the general influ- 
ences of the Glacial epoch, supposing that the Ice period 
was simultaneous in both hemispheres, calculated that 
the vast amount of water abstracted from the ocean, 
and locked up in mountains of ice around the two 
poles, would lower the general water level about two 
thousand feet. 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

From this survey of facts, it appears that the sup- 
position of a wide-spread submergence of Europe and 
Asia which continued for but a brief period and 
occurred since man came into the world, so far from 
presenting any insuperable difficulties to the well- 
informed geologist, relieves him from a great number 



The Deluge in North America. 359 

of difficulties, and gives a reasonable explanation to a 
large and accumulating class of facts which refuse any 
other explanation. In conclusion, it will be profitable 
briefly to state the theory anew, and summarize the 
facts so readily resolved by it. The scientific supposi- 
tion in conformity with the general statements of the 
Bible concerning the Noachian Deluge would be about 
as follows : — 

In connection with the instability of the earth's crust 
accompanying, and probably caused by, the accumula- 
tions of ice during the Glacial epoch and its subsequent 
melting, with the return of the water to the ocean bed, 
there was a wide-spread depression of Europe and of 
Northern, Central, and Western Asia, which, though 
gradual at first, culminated in a catastrophe of more 
rapid subsidence, followed by a still more rapid emer- 
gence of the continents, with numerous successive sud- 
den uplifts over various portions of the submerged area. 
Such a continental subsidence, amounting to about 
fourteen hundred feet in Western Europe and about 
three thousand feet around the heaviest continental 
masses of Central Asia, would fill the Jordan Valley 
with oceanic water ; would temporarily convert all Eu- 
ropean Russia, except the Ural Mountains, in com- 
pany with the great Aral-Caspian depression and all 



360 The Deluge in Noj-th America. 

Western and Northwestern Siberia, into a sea; would 
make Lake Baikal an arm of the ocean, and would let 
oceanic water through the Sungarian depression, south- 
east of Lake Balkash, into the Desert of Gobi, and there 
fill a basin in the center of Asia larger than the Medi- 
terranean Sea. Corresponding results would naturally 
follow in the entire valley of the Euphrates and about 
the borders of Armenia. This depression of the land, 
followed by a spasmodic emergence, would readily ac- 
count for the following puzzling facts: — 

1. The rubble drift of Great Britain and Western 
Europe, with its widely dispersed boulders from local 
elevations which were not centers for the accumulation 
of glacial ice, and which could not have generated lo- 
cal streams of water sufficient to produce the results. 

2. The filling of the numerous ossiferous fissures 
in Western Europe with an indiscriminate mixture of 
the separate bones of widely diverse species of animals, 
mingled with angular fragments of rock and with earth 
without stratification, and containing occasional stone 
implements made by the hand of man. These could 
not have been filled gradually, because there are no 
entire skeletons of animals, and none of the bones arc 
gnawed. But they were evidently filled by the indis- 
criminate action of a movement of water acting from 
above, and sweeping everything before it. 



The Deluge in North America. 361 

3. The distribution of loess over not only the ele- 
vated portions ■ of the continent, but over the highest 
elevations in such islands as that of Guernsey, in the 
English Channel, separated by many miles from the 
continent. 

4. The enormous accumulations of the bones of 
hippopotami in the cave of San Ciro, near Palermo, on 
the Island of Sicily, where whole herds of this animal, 
which now lives only in Southern Africa, evidently 
sought refuge from rising water in an extensive cave 
at the base of the rugged cliffs of Monte Grifone. 

5. The recent silting up of the Jordan Valley, re- 
sulting in a vast accumulation of fine sediment, in some 
places hundreds of feet in thickness, and forming ter- 
races and shore-lines up to a level of seven hundred 
and fifty feet above the Dead Sea. The recentness of 
this accumulation is evident from the fact that only a 
limited amount of it has yet been washed down into 
the Dead Sea to fill it up. The supposition that this 
former enlargement of the area of water in the Jordan 
Valley was directly due to the Glacial epoch is without 
evidence, as no signs of former glaciers appear in the 
southern portion of the Lebanon region. The Lebanon 
glacier at the head of the Kadisha River, north of 
Beirut, was, very likely, a result of the increased pre- 



302 The Deluge in North America. 

cipitation incident to this increased expanse of water. 

6. The accumulation of extensive beach gravel of 
recent date at an elevation of seven or eight hundred 
feet above the ocean at various places around the Black 
Sea. 

7. The accumulation of extensive gravel deposits 
in the northern part of the Lena Valley and adjacent 
country, several hundred feet above the ocean, contain- 
ing fresh vegetal deposits and the bones of the mam- 
moth. 

8. The existence of Arctic seal in Lake Baikal, two 
thousand miles from the ocean, and 1,680 feet above it. 

9. The many geological evidences of a recent great 
extension of water over the region now generally 
known as the Desert of Gobi. 

10. The historical Chinese tradition of the exis- 
tence of such a vast body of water in the same region, 
known as the Han Hai. 

11. The recent great climatic changes which have 
taken place in Central Asia, indicated by the freshness 
of the water in the Caspian and Aral seas and Lake 
Balkash, and by the former vastly increased volume of 
the ancient Oxus and Jaxartes rivers, and of numerous 
other streams coming down from the mountains of 
Central Asia. For, only the temporary inclusion of 



The Deluge in Xorth America. 363 

such an interior sea as would be formed in the Desert 
of Gobi would furnish the required evaporating sur- 
face to secure the enlarged rainfall implied; while its 
gradual desiccation would bring about the return of 
the present arid conditions, thus furnishing a perfect 
solution of one of the most complicated problems of 
climatic changes that have ever been presented, ac- 
counting for all stages in the progress of events, even 
the limited enlargement of the glaciers which formerly 
existed in the surrounding mountains. 

12. The constancy with which the pressure of pop- 
ulation has tended to disperse the tribes and races 
which have occupied Central Asia. To some extent 
this may have been due to the natural tendency of man 
to increase in geometric ratio, but, doubtless, partly to 
the loss of fertility consequent upon the diminution of 
rainfall, of which there are innumerable signs. 

13. The final distribution of loess in broad, level, 
terrace-like belts bordering both Turkestan and North- 
western China ; for, however much wind may have had 
to do in slowly accumulating the material about the 
bases of the mountains, it is clear that some more gen- 
eral force than local streams or any other slowly acting 
cause has determined a large part of the final read- 
justment of the material. 



364 The Deluge in North America. 

14. The occurrence of human remains in connec- 
tion with those of extinct animals of the Glacial epoch 
at Kief, in Southern Russia, six hundred feet above 
the sea, and fifty feet below the continuous deposit of 
loess which covers the region. 

15. The wide-spread traditions of a flood found 
among the peoples of nearly every portion of the globe. 

16. The more definite and restrained account, evi- 
dently free from absurd legendary accretions, which 
occurs in the book of Genesis. 

17. The great destruction of animal species which 
were early companions of man during and immediately 
after the Glacial epoch. 

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

In conclusion, we may reply to numerous objections 
that may arise, by quoting a few paragraphs from Pro- 
fessor Prestwich's closing remarks: — 

"A preliminary objection to a submergence of the 
character described in the foregoing pages, that will no 
doubt occur to many, must not be passed over in silence. 
I allude to the entire absence of marine remains in the 
different phases of the rubble drift over the area sup- 
posed to have been submerged. In reply, it has to be 
observed that for marine remains to have been located 
on the submerged land, certain conditions would be 
indispensable. In the absence of those conditions, we 



The Deluge in North America. 365 

could not expect to meet with such remains. It is not 
to be assumed, because the waters of the sea have for a 
time covered the land, that marine remains should be 
found there. If the submergence were slow, the ad- 
vance of the waters would not have force sufficient to 
carry before them any of the objects on the shore; or, 
if any living object were so floated, the turbidity and 
deoxydized state of the waters resulting from the up- 
rooting of the surface soil with its vegetable matter 
would be fatal to animal life, and their remains, if any, 
would decay on the surface and be lost. 

" But it may be asked, Why after the submergence, 
and before the return upward movement, should not 
the fauna from adjacent undisturbed areas have mi- 
grated on to the submerged land surface? This would 
no doubt have taken place had the submergence been of 
long duration ; but, short as the general evidence leads 
us to suppose it to have been, such a migration was not 
possible. The muddy state of the waters would also 
for a time be a hindrance to the existence of animal life. 

" The physical evidence is to the effect that the ad- 
vancing waters had little erosive power, since they 
failed to destroy the beaches over which they passed, 
or to wash away the dunes or blown sands which over- 
lie the raised beaches on the north coast of Devon and 
Cornwall. At the same time, the advance of the waters 
was progressive, as, had they been long stayed, they 
would not only have destroyed these surface features, 
but would have left their mark on the land surface, 
either in the form of a beach, or bv a line of water- 



366 The Deluge in North America. 

erosion on the rocks at the level at which they remained 
for the time stationary. The inference is that the wa- 
ters rose slowly and continuously, charged merely with 
the mass of sediment derived from the soil and rocks 
over which they passed. This sediment, which was de- 
posited either at the high tide of the waters or at 
intervals as they subsided, forms the mantle of loess so 
conspicuous in Central Europe, and of the slighter de- 
posit of red earth so widely spread on the lands border- 
ing the Mediterranean. 

" That there was but a short lull when the submer- 
gence reached this stage is to be inferred from the fact 
that the rubble drift rests immediately on the raised 
beach. Had there been any long interval, there would 
have been some form of sedimentary deposit between 
the beach and the head or the blown sands; but there 
is none. With the commencement of the elevatory 
movement, effluent currents at once came into play, 
and according to their varying velocity, carried down, 
sometimes the surface soil or the freshly deposited loess, 
and at others the coarse surface detritus. The con- 
clusion from this is that the upheaval was by fits and 
starts, or rather by a continuous movement, sometimes 
very slow and at others more or less rapid, and ending 
with one of greater rapidity. Where hollows or cav- 
ities existed on the surface, the debris fell into them. 
Open fissures were filled to the brim by the passing 
debris, while the current, acting as a broom, brushed 
off any projecting debris on the top of the fissures, and 



The Deluge in North America. 367 

at the same time swept bare the adjacent more exposed 
surfaces. 

" We judge from these conditions that the submer- 
gence took place slowly and continuously. I do not 
mean by slow, that it took years, but so slow possibly 
as on the whole to be hardly apparent to the spectator 
of the scene, or, may be, it would give him the reverse 
impression, such as that experienced when one's own 
train at a railway station makes a noiseless start and 
another train is standing still alongside, that that train 
was moving and your own stationary, or vice versa. 
So, in this case, the land would seem, to one standing 
on it, as though it were immovable and stationary, and 
that it was the waters that were in movement and 
rising." 4 



368 Genesis and Sc 



CHAPTER XII. 



GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 



In writing upon this subject at previous times, 1 I 
have dwelt, I now believe, somewhat too exclusively 
upon the adaptation of the document to the immediate 
purpose of counteracting the polytheistic tendencies of 
the Israelites, and through them of the world. With 
this in view, the following language was used : — • 

"It was not modern science with which the sacred 
writers wished to be reconciled, but polytheism which 
they wished to cut up root and branch, that gave rhe- 
torical shape to the first chapter of Genesis. Followed 
by the traditions of polytheistic ancestors, tainted by 
the polytheistic conceptions of the Egyptian people from 
whom they had escaped, and surrounded by the civi- 
lized worshipers of Baal and Ashtaroth, the children 
of Israel needed to have the unity of God emphasized. 
Historically it can be shown that the first chapter of 
Genesis has had more influence in disseminating cor- 
rect views of the divine unity and personality than all 
other literature put together. Now what does it say? 
Why, it denies the plurality of gods. It denies it both 
in general and in detail. It affirms, in general, that 
God — the God of Israel — created the heavens and the 



Genesis and Science. 369 

earth. The writer then descends to particulars, and 
affirms ( 1 ) that it was this same one and true God 
who created the light which some ignorantly adored 
as itself divine; (2) it was also the same God that 
ruled both the sky and the earth. (3) The fruitfulness 
of the earth, which some worship as the manifestation 
of a particular divinity, is also the gift of Israel's 
God. (4) The sun and moon are not to be worshiped ; 
God created them. (5) Why worship the sacred bulls 
and cats of Egypt, when it was God who created every 
living thing — the beast of the field, as well as the fowl 
of the air, and the fish of the sea? (6) Finally, God 
created man, and set him over all things he had made. 
Why should the lord of the creation bow down to 
stocks and stones? 

" Such, to the contemporary of Moses, was the pur- 
port of this most remarkable ' proem ' to God's reve- 
lation of man's condition and ground of hope. It 
should be remembered that the first chapter of Genesis 
had the same editorial supervision with the ten com- 
mandments. When thus we consider it as a protest 
against polytheism, and an enforcement of the first two 
commandments, it seems an impertinence to endeavor 
to find all modern science in the document, however 
easy it may be for science to find shelter under the dra- 
pery of its rhetoric." 

If this were all that could be said in justification 
of the literary form of Genesis, it would be ample. 
But prolonged attention to the subject has forced the 



370 Genesis and Science. 

conviction that much more than this can be and needs 
to be said. On the former theory, there would have 
been no necessity for the adoption of any particular 
order in the arrangement of the facts of creation. But, 
upon inspection, there appears in this account a syste- 
matic arrangement of creative facts which corresponds 
so closely with the order of creation as revealed by 
modern science that we cannot well regard it as acci- 
dental. So remarkable is this coordination between the 
inferences of science and the statements of Genesis, 
that they lead such a competent and cautious geologist 
as Professor J. D. Dana to pronounce it utterly unex- 
plainable except on the theory of the divine inspiration 
of the author of Genesis. The following is his em- 
phatic language, written shortly before his death : — 

" Geologists vary much as to their views on this 
chapter [Gen. i.] ; and some will take it literally, af- 
firming that it is a mere fable, no better than other 
fables in ancient history. We would ask of all such 
(as well as of the nature-doubting exegete) a recon- 
sideration of the question ; and if they have doubts with 
regard to the authenticity of the Bible itself, they may 
perhaps be held, after a fair examination of the narra- 
tive, and a consideration of the coincidences between its 
history and the history of the earth derived from na- 
ture, to acknowledge a divine origin for both; and to 
recognize the fact that in this introductory chapter its 



Genesis and Science. 371 

divine author gives the fullest endorsement of the 
book which is so prefaced. It is his own inscription 
on the title-page." - 

It should be noted that this utterance of Professor 
Dana is neither an opinion hastily formed, nor the 
mere reiteration of views held at an earlier period in 
his life. Nearly thirty years before, he had published 
extensively upon this subject in the Bibliotheca Sacra, 
having then recently been convinced of the general 
truth of this view, through his acquaintance with the 
learned and devout Professor Guyot. During this 
period, Professor Dana's mind had been remarkably 
active. He had continued to edit the American Journal 
of Science and to teach his classes in college; he had 
prepared and published numerous editions of his 
" Manual of Geology," and he had continually faced 
the question whether the tendency of advancing science 
was to support or discredit his earlier published views. 
The result is given in the words just cited. As just 
remarked, these were not hastily written, but form the 
close of a long article, prepared expressly to give to the 
world what they had long been asking, — a formal and 
full statement of the result of his maturest study and 
reflection. We are not at liberty to let such an utter- 
ance of so competent a scientific authority upon this 
subject count as of small weight. 



372 Genesis and Science. 

The facts upon the scientific side, as stated by Pro- 
fessor Dana in the article referred to, are as follows: 
According to a combination of evidence which cannot 
well be disputed, the stages of the world's development 
have been these : — 

i . When the material elements of the universe were 
first brought into existence, they were diffused and 
formless, that is, they were not collected to form the 
suns and planets and satellites, which now in such ma- 
jestic circles wheel around each other in space. The 
nebular, hypothesis is already a doctrine of science. 

2. One of the first results of the collecting to- 
gether of this diffused nebulous matter would be the 
creation of light, which, like heat and electricity, is 
nothing else than a mode of motion. 

3. There is no reasonable doubt that the earth was 
at one time a molten mass, with a temperature of 
2,ooo° above zero, and hence for a long time, until the 
surface of the earth should have cooled down to a tem- 
perature not greater than 600 ° above zero, there could 
have been no water upon it, and it must have been sur- 
rounded by a cloud of vapor of immense thickness and 
density, which would have been broken up and re- 
moved only after the lapse of untold ages. 

4. The appearance of plants upon the earth pre- 
ceded that of animals. This is proved both by the 



renesis an 



d Science. 373 



nature of the case and by weighty positive evidence: 
( 1 ) So far as is known, animals are not able directly 
to assimilate mineral matter. Animals are either com- 
pelled to feed upon plants or upon one another; while 
plants draw their nutriment directly from the earth 
and air. (2) Plants will also endure a much higher 
temperature than any known animals. Some forms of 
plant life will even survive a temperature of 220° above 
zero, that is, they would not be destroyed by boiling 
water. (3) Again, the lowest forms of animal life 
(certain rhizopods) exhibit such marvelous attributes 
of instinct and choice as to separate them at once from 
all forms of plant life. Every argument, therefore, in 
support of the general fact of evolution in nature, points 
to the origin of plant life before that of animal life. 
(4) In the earliest known sedimentary rocks, namely, 
the archaean formations of Canada, there are extensive 
deposits of graphite, or black lead. Now it should be 
remembered that this, though called " black lead," is 
not lead at all, but pure carbon, or coal, and the prob- 
ability that it is of vegetable origin, like other coal, is 
very great. It is true that distinct remains of plants 
have not yet been found in archaean rocks; but these 
rocks have been so metamorphosed, or changed, by heat, 
that all direct relics of distinct forms of plant life must 
very early have been destroyed. Still, in Rhode Island 



374 Genesis and Science. 

and in Worcester, Mass., this so-called black lead is 
found so related to the coal deposits of that vicinity 
that there can be little doubt that vt is itself trans- 
formed coal. Thus the evidence is cumulative and 
well-nigh irresistible, that plants were created before 
animals. 

5. The order in which the various forms of animal 
life have appeared on the earth is as follows: The sea 
was first peopled with animals not having a backbone, 
such as the various kinds of shell-fish. Fishes with a 
backbone come next. After fishes, the next order of 
animals which appears in geological strata are Amphib- 
ians, which, like the frog, can live both in the water 
and out of it. After the amphibians come the Reptiles, 
or creeping things. So numerous are the reptiles in 
this age, and so remarkable are their size and shape, that 
a whole geological period before the introduction of 
the class of animals with which man is most closely 
allied is called by Agassiz the Age of Reptiles. 

As to the date of the origin of Birds, the scientific 
evidence is somewhat indeterminate; but there can be 
little doubt that their advent preceded that of the 
earliest mammals. The Mammals are those animals 
whose young are born alive and are suckled by their 
mothers. The earliest of these, however, like the 
opossum and kangaroo, are not true mammals, since 



Genesis and Science. 375 

their young are not able to move about independently 
of their mothers, but are carried abcut by them in a 
pouch until partially grown. True mammals, like the 
cow, the horse, the dog, the cat, and the ape, appear 
only at a much later age, closely bordering upon that 
of Man. Without question, man is the last of this 
series, and fitly closes the developing scheme of natural 
creation as unfolded to us in the leaves of the geolog- 
ical record. 

Such, upon the scientific side, is the line of the par- 
allel with which the story of creation in Genesis is to 
be brought into comparison. The question at issue 
is, Is the parallel between the two records such as to 
exclude chance and to compel us to acknowledge the 
presence of design? The more closely one studies the 
problem, the less can he be satisfied with any theory 
that rules out the idea of a design in this parallelism. 
It could not have been a matter of mere chance that a 
writer should describe the order of creation so nearly 
in accordance with the discoveries of modern science. 

In proof of this statement, let us bring the Mosaic 
line of the parallelism briefly before us. 

I. According to Genesis, the universe was brought 
to its present condition not instantaneously, but by 
progressive stages, corresponding in a remarkable de- 



376 Genesis and Science. 

gree to the actual order as inferred by modern science. 
In the first place, it is surprising that, in the unscien- 
tific age in which the book of Genesis originated, a 
writer should have spoken of the creation of light as 
taking place before the creation of the sun and moon 
and stars. But this corresponds with recent discov- 
eries of science which have ascertained that light is the 
result of chemical action, and so must really have been 
one of the earliest accompaniments of the creative or 
developing process, and must have long preceded that 
segregation of matter which constitutes our globe and 
the solar system. 

2. But the second stage as mentioned by Genesis 
speaks in remarkable terms of the formation of a firma- 
ment subsequent to the formation of light, and previous 
to the appearance of dry land, — a firmament separating 
the waters below from the waters above. It would be 
difficult to choose a brief statement of the case which 
should more happily express in phenomenal language 
that stage of creation, brought into view by modern 
science, in which the nebulous matter became localized, 
and segregated into revolving systems, such as the as- 
tronomer now delights to study. But, according to the 
writer of Genesis, as well as according to the dicta of 
science, all this was preliminary to those physical con- 



Genesis and Science. 377 

ditions which would render possible the existence of 
organic life. 

3. According to Genesis, the third stage of progress 
was marked by the appearance of dry land. Upon the 
third day, also, close upon the appearance of dry land, 
occurs the beginning of vegetable life, in which the 
characteristics by which a living species are distin- 
guished from an inorganic substance are most clearly 
stated. Inorganic nature has no inherent power of 
reproduction. But the writer of Genesis describes a 
living species as one whose seed is in itself, yielding seed 
after its kind. 

It is sometimes objected to this account of the crea- 
tion of the vegetable kingdom upon the third day, that 
it describes the higher species of plants, which are in- 
troduced only at a much later period, namely, the grass 
and the fruit-trees ; whereas the earliest plants belong 
to a much older order of the vegetable kingdom. A 
similar objection is also urged against the account of 
the creation of the dry land, since that has been going 
on ever since, new land being formed even at the pres- 
ent day. As a most satisfactory reply to this objection, 
we can do no better than to quote the language of Dr. 
E. P. Barrows, who wrote many years ago as follows: — 
In our view Moses, in describing the creation of 



378 Genesis and Science. 

the vegetable kingdom on the third day, ... de- 
scribes neither the creation of the particular existing 
species as contrasted with the extinct species of former 
ages, nor of these extinct species as contrasted with the 
species now existing. But he describes the establish- 
ment of the vegetable kingdom in its laws and general 
formSj which are valid for all the subsequent geolog- 
ical eras. The grand fact revealed is, that on the third 
day the vegetable world was brought into being under 
the immutable principles which now regulate its oper- 
ations. And we ask: Why is not this a fair interpreta- 
tion of the words, ' and the earth brought forth grass, 
the herb yielding seed after its kind, and the tree yield- 
ing fruit, whose seed is in itself, after its kind? ' The 
reader will notice that the two things made prominent 
in this account are law, as expressed in the formula, 
after its kind, and general forms, ' grass,' ' herb,' ' fruit- 
tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself.' " 3 

Upon the same point, with reference to the crea- 
tion of birds, Mr. Gladstone has the following perti- 
nent language : — 

" No doubt," he says, " there may be a degree of 
literalism which will even suffice to show that, as 
' every winged fowl ' was produced on the fourth day 
of the Hexaemeron, therefore the birth of new fowls 
continually is a contradiction to the text of Genesis. 
But does not the equity of common sense require us 
to understand simply that the order of ' winged fowl,' 
whatever that may mean, took its place in creation at 



Genesis and Science. 379 

a certain time, and that from that time its various 
component classes were in course of production ?" 

4. The fourth grand stage in the creative plan as 
described by the writer of Genesis relates to the estab- 
lishment of days and seasons upon the earth, through 
its relation to the sun and moon. They are then set 
in the firmament to give light upon the earth, and to 
rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the 
light from the darkness. Up to this point we may 
suppose, from scientific data, that there was no dark- 
ness upon the earth; that, though the earth was 
surrounded by clouds, they were luminous clouds, 
everywhere shining, like the aurora of the North, from 
the electrical disturbances, which then must have been 
so abundant. The plants of the coal period were not 
necessarily dependent upon either the light or the heat 
of the sun. It is only the higher forms of plants and 
animals that are especially adapted to this periodicity 
in the return of both heat and light which character- 
izes the present order of things. When the earth's 
swaddling-band of clouds was all one blaze of electric 
light, the sun did not divide between the darkness and 
the light, and the moon and the stars did not rule over 
the night. This turn to the meaning of the words 
seems fully justified by the frequent repetition of the 
object for which the sun and moon and stars were 



380 Genesis and Science. 

Ci set in the firmament" (ver. 17). This was to be 
for signs and seasons and days and years. This they 
could be only when they became visible from the sur- 
face of the earth. 

5. The fifth grand stage marks the introduction of 
such animals as swim in the water and fly in the air. 
Here, too, though the general correspondence with sci- 
entific inferences is marked, we are not compelled to 
suppose that every class of winged fowl and every class 
of sea monster were actually brought into existence 
during that period ; for, in so brief and so summary an 
account, we should naturally expect that some things 
of the same class would be referred to by anticipation. 

6. The sixth stage, according to the writer in Gene- 
sis, brings us to the introduction of those forms of life 
most closely connected with man, namely, the cattle and 
beasts of the earth. Here, also, was the appropriate 
place to mention the creeping things, since the age of 
reptiles is joined so closely to that of the mammalian 
forms of animal life. For brevity's sake and complete- 
ness, they are referred to by retrospect, in order, so to 
speak, to glean the field, as the higher forms of fish are 
referred to by anticipation in the account of the fifth 
day. It is a capital error to impose upon so rhetorical 
and brief an account as this a literalism of interpreta- 
tion which would befit only an extended scientific 



Genesis and Science. 381 

treatise. It is only in general outline that correspon- 
dence can be expected. Language does not permit all 
truth to be compressed into a single paragraph. 

It remains to discuss the question whether it is allow- 
able to consider the word " day " in the first chapter 
of Genesis as the equivalent of long periods of time. 
Upon the propriety of doing this, we need do little 
but quote the words of Dr. Driver. While distinctly 
rejecting, on what he mistakenly supposes to be scien- 
tific grounds, the foregoing plan of harmonizing Gene- 
sis with geology, and holding that the word " day " 
must signify a literal day, Dr. Driver still concedes all 
that is necessary upon the point. His language is as 
follows : — 

"At the same time the possibility must be admitted 
that the writer may have consciously used the term 
day figuratively, fully aware on the one hand that the 
work of the Creator could not be measured by human 
standards, but on the other hand desirous of artificially 
accommodating it to the period of the week. In spite 
of the phrases evening and morning, which seem to im- 
ply literal days, the supposition that the narrator meant 
his ' days ' as the figurative representation of periods 
should not, as the present writer ventures to think, be 
ruled as inadmissible." 

" The question, however, is not so much what the 



382 Genesis and Science. 

word means, as whether or not it may have been ap- 
plied figuratively by the writer. It seems reasonable 
to admit that this may have been the case. The ' morn- 
ing ' and ' evening ' will then be part, not of the reality, 
but of the representation." 4 

In these remarks, Dr. Driver only states a principle 
which is so clear as not to need repetition or emphasis, 
except for the fact that ill-advised statements upon the 
subject have frequently been put forward by persons in 
prominent positions who assume to speak with author- 
ity. The truth is, as Dr. Driver clearly perceives, that 
the meaning of such terms is not a question of mere 
etymology or Hebrew grammar, but of the broader 
questions of rhetoric, upon which the judgment of any 
well-informed literary person is of about as much value 
as that of a specialist in Hebrew. Broad-minded scien- 
tific men like Winchell, Dawson, Dana, and Guyot 
cannot, by good rights, be warned off from this field, 
and men of wide literary tastes and political experience 
like Gladstone are in their appropriate province when 
estimating, from general considerations, the character of 
such a document as that containing the cosmogony of 
Genesis. 

The words of Gladstone on this point are those of 
experience and wisdom : — 

" We do not hear the authority of Scripture im- 



Genesis and Science. 383 

peached on the ground that it assigns to the Almighty 
eyes and ears, hands, arms, and feet; nay, even the 
emotions of the human being. This being so, I am 
unable to understand why any disparagement to the 
credit of the sacred books should ensue because, to 
describe the order and successive stages of the Divine 
working, these have been distributed into ' days.' 
What was the thing required in order to make this 
great procession of acts intelligible and impressive? 
Surely it was to distribute the parts each into some 
integral division of time, having the character of some- 
thing complete in itself, of a revolution, or outset and 
return. There are but three such divisions familiarly 
known to man. Of these the day was the most familiar 
to human perceptions; and probably on this account its 
figurative use is admitted to be found in prophetic 
texts, as, indeed, it largely pervades ancient and modern 
speech. Given the object in view, which indeed can 
hardly be questioned, does it not appear that the ' day,' 
more definitely separated than either month or year 
from what precedes and what follows, was appropriate- 
ly chosen for the purpose of conveying the idea of de- 
velopment by gradation in the process which the Book 
sets forth?" 5 

In view of all these facts, we must deem it by no 
means a profitless employment to study the lines of har- 
mony that are so manifest between the first chapter of 
Genesis and the record of creation as found in the in- 
ferences of modern science. It is not easv to believe 



384 Genesis and Science. 

that this scheme of reconciliation is altogether the child 
of the prepossessions of students either of the Bible 
or of nature. It is true that the evidence is not demon- 
strative, in the strict sense of that word, but certainly it 
is impressive, and raises so high a degree of probability 
in favor of the divine guidance of the writers of the 
first chapter of Genesis, as materially to sustain the 
respect with which the Bible has been regarded so long 
by the Christian public. 

In the words of President Edward Hitchcock, writ- 
ten many years ago, — 

"It is not necessary that we be perfectly sure that 
the method which has been described, or any other, of 
bringing geology into harmony with the Bible, is in- 
fallibly true. It is only necessary that it should be sus- 
tained by probable evidence; that it should fairly meet 
the geological difficulty on the one hand, and do no 
violence to the language or spirit of the Bible on the 
other. This is sufficient, surely, to satisfy every philo- 
sophical mind, that there is no collision between 
geology and revelation. But should it appear hereafter, 
either from the discoveries of the geologist or the 
philologist, that our views must be somewhat modified, 
it would not show that the previous view had been in- 
sufficient to harmonize the two subjects; but only that 
here, as in every other department of human knowledge, 
perfection is not attained, except by long-continued ef- 
forts." 6 



Genesis and Science. 385 

In conclusion, it is in place to call more particular 
attention to the scope of the argument which may 
properly be drawn from the wide range of facts pre- 
sented in this volume, and to note that the validity of 
the argument is not impaired by the fact that only a 
small portion of the biblical history has been brought 
under review. Necessarily the most of the history is 
such as cannot be directly substantiated by outside evi- 
dence, and can be accepted only upon the strength of 
our general confidence in l:he witnesses. The facts 
here adduced go far towards establishing confidence in 
the integrity both of the original witnesses and of those 
who have transmitted the testimony to us. To a re- 
markable extent in this field, as elsewhere, the apparent 
improbabilities of the Bible are found to be capable of 
verification. From every quarter, unexpected light is 
breaking in upon us from apparent darkness. The 
strength of the evidence of the truth of the historical 
statements in the Bible is, therefore, not diminished, 
but rather is increased, by modern scientific investiga- 
tion. 

The historical narratives which we have brought 
under review are so fitted into peculiar and little 
understood physical conditions that any attempt to ex- 
pand the simple record of the phenomena would have 



386 Genesis and Science. 

involved the writers in statements concerning such an 
inexplicable network of physical causes and effects 
that they would have inevitably been led into extrava- 
gant and grotesque representations. The freedom of 
the sacred record from such extravagance and gro- 
tesqueness where the liability to such error was at 
its maximum, certainly goes far to establish its credi- 
bility in those matters in which corroborative testi- 
mony is unattainable. The competence of a witness 
where his statements can be verified throughout an in- 
tricate environment is the best guarantee we can have 
of his competence when, uncorroborated, it leads us 
into unknown fields. Those who reject the testimony 
of the sacred writers certainly do so in the face of 
evidence that is ordinarily accepted as conclusive. 



Appendix. 387 



APPENDIX. 



CHAPTER I. 



Note i, p. 14. — This subject forms the burden of 
Butler's "Analog}'," a classic work that is too much 
neglected by the present generation. 

" In questions of difficulty, or such as are thought 
so, where more satisfactory evidence cannot be had, or 
is not seen, if the result of examination be, that there 
appears upon the whole, any the lowest presumption on 
one side, and none on the other, or a greater presump- 
tion on one side, though in the lowest degree greater, 
this determines the question, even in matters of specula- 
tion ; and, in matters of practice, will lay us under an 
absolute and formal obligation, in point of prudence 
and of interest, to act upon that presumption, or low 
probability, though it be so low as to leave the mind 
in a very great doubt which is the truth. For surely 
a man is as really bound in prudence to do what upon 
the whole appears, according to the best of his judg- 
ment, to be for his happiness, as what he certainly 
knows to be so. Nay, further, in questions of great 
consequence, a reasonable man will think it concerns him 
to remark lower probabilities and presumptions than 
these; such as amount to no more than showing one 



388 Appendix. 

side of a question to be as supposable and credible as 
the other; nay, such as but amount to much less even 
than this. For numberless instances might be men- 
tioned respecting the common pursuits of life, where a 
man would be thought, in a literal sense, distracted, 
who would not act, and with great application too, not 
only upon an even chance, but upon much less, and 
where the probability or chance was greatly against his 
succeeding" (pp. 30-31). 

Note 2, p. 22. — The question of the genuineness of 
these extracts is exhaustively considered by Rev. Alex- 
ander Mair, D.D., in the first volume of the Fourth 
Series of the Expositor (pp. 366-381), from which it 
appears that General Montholon (who was the con- 
stant companion of Napoleon on St. Helena, and to 
whom an early copy of the book from which these quo- 
tations are made, was sent, in 1 841, by Chevalier de 
Beauterne) wrote to the author, " I have read with a 
lively interest your work, Sentiment de Napoleon sur 
le Christianisme, and I do not think it possible to ex- 
press better the religious beliefs of the Emperor." On 
the other hand, General Bertrand repudiated the sen- 
timents, and spoke of them as a " libel," adding that 
there was not one word of truth in them, saying fur- 
ther, " Neither in France, nor in the army, nor in the 
Island of Elba, nor in St. Helena, have I heard Na- 



Appendix. 389 

poleon discussing the existence or the divinity of Jesus 
Christ " (p. 371). 

The explanation of this contradiction seems to be 
that Napoleon talked more freely with General Mon- 
tholon than he did with General Bertrand. The lat- 
ter's denial, therefore, has little weight. There can 
be no reasonable doubt of the substantial correctness of 
these reported conversations of the Emperor. 

Note 3, p. 22. — For this extract, and many more of 
similar tenor from various authors, see Philip Schaff's 
" Person of Christ." 

Note 4, p. 24. — For full proof of this statement, see 
my " Scientific Aspects of Christian Evidences," chap, 
ix. 

After long contention for the contrary opinion, even 
Harnack was at last compelled, by the discovery of Ta- 
tian's " Diatessaron," and various other lost works, to 
admit that the New Testament writings all belonged 
practically to the first century. 

" The oldest literature of the Church in all main 
points and in most details, from the point of view of 
literary criticism, is genuine and trustworthy. . . . 
The chronological - succession in which tradition has 
arranged the original documents of Christianity is, in 
all essential points from the Epistles of St. Paul to the 
writings of Irenaeus, correct, and compels the historian 



390 Appendix. 

to keep clear of all hypotheses concerning the course of 
events which conflict with this succession." 

Note 5, p. 30. — For a very effective presentation of 
the evidence that written documents were in use among 
the Israelites from the earliest times, see Orr's very able 
work " Problems of the Old Testament," pp. 71-81. 

CHAPTER 11. 

Note i, p. 40. — See article " Primeval Chronol- 
ogy," Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1890, pp. 285-303. 

Note 2, p. 42. — This whole subject is treated in a 
convincing and masterly manner by Professor Willis J. 
Beecher in the Bibliotheca Sacra for April, 1899. His 
statement of the case is self-evidencing ; — 

" The completed Old Testament book contains more 
than merely the extracts which the final authors have 
made from their sources. It gives us their judgment, 
either expressed or implied, in regard to the relations 
between the sources, and the proper interpretation of 
the sources. 

" In proportion as the book is held to differ from the 
original sources, in just that proportion does the study 
of an Old Testament book include much that is not 
included in the original sources. The men who put the 
sources together had a very important part in the au- 
thorship of the books. To ignore their part by paying 
exclusive attention to the sources is contrary to all laws 
of scientific procedure." 



Appendix. 391 

". . . To assume that the original sources of the Old 
Testament book are the nucleus within which inspira- 
tion is confined is contrary to all the evidence. The 
holy men that spake as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost were as often the secondary as the primary au- 
thors of the books. To neglect the book as a whole, 
confining attention to the supposed original sources, is, 
from the point of view of the doctrine of inspiration, to 
neglect a part of the revealed mind of the Spirit." 

" . . . . Some of our contemporaries are accustomed 
to stigmatize the men who put the Old Testament 
sources together as ' uncritical.' But these men, who- 
ever they were, critical or uncritical, constructed lit- 
erary products that have attracted more attention than 
any other literature for from twenty-two to thirty- 
three centuries. How many living men are there, 
highly gifted critically, whose work upon other men's 
writings will command world-wide attention twenty- 
three centuries hence ? These secondary authors of the 
Old Testament books did their work, twenty-two cen- 
turies and more ago, in such a way that hundreds of 
scholars now living, including the very men who count 
them uncritical, find it worth while to devote thou- 
sands of years of skilled study to the examination of 
the work they did. In view of this, it is idle to say 
that their judgment in literary and historical matters is 
not worth considering. However they may have lacked 
nineteenth-century culture, the fact that their work is 
still so thoroughly alive is conclusive proof that they 
were men of gifts and of sound mind. They had foun- 



392 Appendix. 

tains of information which we have not. In particular, 
they had the whole of certain sources of which we have 
only the parts which they transcribed. Whatever any 
may think as to the question whether they were by in- 
spiration guarded from mistakes, or as to the degree of 
their trustworthiness, the statements that such men 
have left on record are at least worthy a deliberate 
examination. We owe a respectful study to the books 
as they left them, and not merely to the sources as they 
found them" (pp. 218-220). 

Note 3, p. 44. — According to Sayce, — 

" The proclamation of Cyrus shows that he was not 
a Zoroastrian like Darius and Xerxes, but that as he 
claimed to be the successor of the Babylonian kings, so 
also he acknowledged the supremacy of Bel-Merodach 
the supreme Babylonian god. Hence the restoration of 
the Jewish exiles was not due to any sympathy with 
monotheism, but was a part of a general policy. Ex- 
perience had taught him the danger of allowing a 
disaffected population to exist in a country which might 
be invaded by an enemy; his own conquest of Baby- 
lonia had been assisted by the revolt of a part of its 
population; and he therefore reversed the policy of de- 
portation and denationalization which had been at- 
tempted by the Assyrian and Babylonian kings. The 
exiles and the images of their gods were sent back to 
their old homes ; only in the case of the Jews, who had 
no images, it was the sacred vessels of the temple which 
were restored" (Hastings' Dictionary, vol. i. p. 542). 



Appendix. 393 

Note 4, p. 45. — Art. " The Abasement of Neb- 
uchadnezzar," Bibliotheca Sacra, October, 1905, pp. 
601-625. 

Note 5, p. 48. — Pusey, in his Lectures on Daniel, 
has the following pertinent remarks, though he is in 
error in calling the disease lycanthropy: — 

" There is scarcely any stronger internal evidence of 
truth, than circumstances, on the surface unlikely, 
which, on careful examination, appear to be in harmony 
with the rest of the history. And this the more, when 
the scientific knowledge of that truth belongs to a 
later age. Thus, in secular history, Herodotus' account 
of the circumnavigation of Africa is now undoubted, 
because of the fact of the position of the sun, which one 
would not have known who had not crossed the line." 

" So, in this account of Nebuchadnezzar, if the dis- 
ease was some form of Lycanthropy, we should have 
an account of a rare disease, mentioned by no author 
before the Christian era, with physical facts, not ob- 
vious, but in harmony with it ; but in any case, and still 
more remarkably, we have the psychological fact, that 
one, with a beast's heart, perhaps imagining himself an 
ox, any how in a very degraded form of insanity, could 
still pray as a man. . . . This is related in Daniel with 
the simplicity of truth ; ignorant scepticism pronounces 
it impossible; true physics and psychology attest the 
reality of the description." 

An interesting illustration of the way in which a 



394 Appendix. 

writer's personal unfamiliarity with the scenes involved 
in his descriptions is brought to light appears in Dean 
Stanley's criticisms upon two poems of Keble's " Christ- 
ian Year." In the verses for the Third Sunday of 
Advent, Keble, in describing Lake Galilee, writes, — 

"All through the summer night 
Those blossoms red and bright 
Spread their soft breasts, unheeding, to the breeze." 

In the early editions of the " Christian Year " a note 
referred to these blossoms as " rhododendrons " ; where- 
as they are oleanders, and the correction is made in later 
editions. In another stanza the poet speaks of " moun- 
tains terraced high with mossy stone," which is a 
figure familiar enough to a poet living in the moist 
climate of England, but inapplicable to the bare land- 
scape of Palestine. Again, in the verses on the Seventh 
Sunday after Trinity, he speaks of Tabor's lonely 
peak," whereas the Mount of Precipitation, Little 
Hermon, and Mount Gilboa are all within three miles 
of it and easily visible. 

Note 6, p. 52. — All this is put in a very clear light 
by Professor Wilson in a learned article in the Bible 
Student and Teacher for February, 1 906. He says in 
part : — 

" No one knows enough of the reign of Nabonidus 



Appendix. 395 

to assert with confidence, or truthfulness, that the 
statements of the book of Daniel with regard to Bel- 
shazzar may not all be historically true. 

" But, how then about his being called in Daniel 
the son of Nebuchadnezzar, whereas Nabonidus calls 
him his son? No doubt, if we knew all the circum- 
stances of that time, we could explain this apparent dis- 
crepancy with satisfaction. As it is, who knows, first, 
that Belshazzar may not have been the son of Nebu- 
chadnezzar by blood and the son of Nabonidus by adop- 
tion ? Or, secondly, that the mother of Belshazzar was 
not a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar and at the same 
time the wife of Nabonidus, so that Belshazzar would 
be the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, and could in con- 
sequence thereof be called, in the manner of the He- 
brews and Aramaeans, his son? Or, finally, he could 
be called the son of Nebuchadnezzar, in the same sense 
that Jehu is called on the Assyrian monuments the son 
of Omri; or Xerxes the son of Cambyses and Cyrus, 
by Herodotus in the genealogy of Xerxes given in Bk. 
vii. 1 1 of Herodotus' history, i.e. as his legitimate suc- 
cessor on the throne, without regard to blood rela- 
tionship." 

" If we suppose with Pinches (who, it seems to me, 
has written best on this matter), that Darius the Mede 
was the same as Gobryas, the Bible and the monuments 
will be in entire accord. . . . 

" Gobryas was Cyrus' governor (amel pihate su) of 
Babylon as early at least as the 3d day of the 8th 
month of Cyrus' accession year. (Annals of Naboni- 



396 Appendix. 

dus, Col. iii. line 20.) He was in command on the 
nth of the same month, when Belshazzar was slain. 
It is most probable — there is nothing, at least, against 
the supposition — that he remained in command and at 
the head of the government, until Cambyses was in- 
stalled as king of Babylon on the 4th of Nisan of the 
following year. The only question, then, is: What 
would be the title in Hebrew and Aramaic of Gobryas 
as amel pihate of Babylon? In answer, we can only 
say, that malkatz and malek (sarah) would be the 
only suitable words; and that Gobryas could rightly 
be called by this title as long as he was amel pihate of 
the city or province of Babylon, i.e. from the 3d of the 
8th month of Cyrus' accession's year to the 3d of Nisan 
of his first year." 

" But some will say, How do you explain the differ- 
ence of name? The easiest explanation would be to 
suppose that an error had crept into the Biblical text. 
Still, we are by no means shut up to this explanation. 
Many kings in ancient, as well as modern, times had 
two or more names ; especially a pre-regnal and a regnal 
name. The great Rameses the Second (or Usertesen as 
Lethe claims), king of Egypt, seems to be the same as 
the Sesostris of the Greeks. But Sesostris is found per- 
haps but twice, and then with different spelling, among 
the almost innumerable titles and monuments of this 
king. (See ' Le Livre des Rois,' by Brugsch and Bouri- 
ant, 444.) So Solomon is the same as Jedediah. But 
coming nearer to the time of Cyrus, we find that Artax- 
erxes was called Cyrus before he became king (Jose- 



Appendix. 397 

phus) ; that Darius Nothus was called Ochus, before he 
became king; and the last Darius, Codomannus. Why 
may not the name Darius have been assumed first of all 
by Gobryas the Mede, when he became king of Baby- 
lon ? If we could only be sure as to the meaning of the 
word Darius, we might understand better, why the 
name was given or assumed, as a royal or princely 
appellation. Who knows, that Darius is not the trans- 
lation of Gubaru? Or, that if, as good authorities 
claim, the first part of the name is the same as the new 
Persian dara, ' king,' the name Darius may not mean 
some such a thing as regulusf Or if the name be derived 
from the old Persian verb tar, ' to hold,' who knows 
that it was not originally a title meaning simply 
' holder of the scepter ' ? The title in either case would 
be appropriate to Gobryas as sub-king of Babylon, and 
also to Darius, the son of Hystaspes, who was by birth 
a king, second in rank and race to Cyrus alone. (See 
' Behistun Inscripten,' lines 2 and 3.)" (Pages 86-91.) 

Note 7, p. 54. — For a very interesting and able dis- 
cussion of this subject, we are indebted to an article on 
" Biblical Epidemics of Bubonic Plague," in the Biblio- 
theca Sacra for April, 1904, by Edward M. Merrins, 
M.D., from whom these quotations are made. 

Note 8, p. 54. — " Antiq." x. 1. 5. 

Note 9, p. 54. — " History," ii. 141. 

Note 10, p. 56. — According to Dr. Merrins, — 

"Almost every feature of this narrative fits in with 



398 , Appendix. 

the opinion that it is an account of an epidemic of bu- 
bonic plague. 

" The symptoms of the disease correspond with those 
of plague. The sacred historian, not writing a medical 
treatise on the subject, mentions only the most charac- 
teristic symptoms, — the tumors or plague boils. But 
this of itself is enough to identify the disease. ' No 
other idiopathic fever attacking a multitude of persons 
at the same time is characterised by glandular swell- 
ings, by carbuncles, and by those severe manifestations 
of the nervous, sanguineous, and biliary systems which 
declare themselves in an attack of plague.' A very se- 
vere form is chiefly marked by vomiting of blood, as in 
the outbreak on the Lower Euphrates in 1873; and of 
the Justinian epidemic Gibbon writes: 'In the con- 
stitutions too feeble to produce an eruption, the vomit- 
ing of blood was followed by a mortification of the 
bowels.' It is very interesting to observe that, accord- 
ing to Josephus, death came upon the Philistines very 
suddenly : ' For before the soul could, as usual in easy 
deaths, be well loosed from the body, they brought up 
their entrails, and vomited up what they had eaten, 
which was entirely corrupted by the disease.' In the 
most terrible form called the ' fulminant,' people are 
struck down very suddenly, and die before the tumors 
have time to develop. The inhabitants of the city of 
Ekron were visited by this type. 'And the men of the 
city that died not [immediately] were smitten with 
tumors ' " (pp. 295—296). 



Appendix. 399 

Note ii, p. 66. — Keil's " Commentary on the Book 
of Joshua," page 264. The author discusses this pass- 
age in Joshua at great length. 

CHAPTER III. 

Note i, p. 70. — Brugsch's " History of Egypt," 
vol. i. p. 304. 

Note 2, p. 70. — " The Rational Almanac, tracing 
the Evolution of Modern Almanacs from Ancient Ideas 
of Time and suggesting Improvements. By Moses B. 
Cotsworth, of York, England. Published by the Au- 
thor." 

Note 3, p. 74. — Art. " Famine," Smith's Diction- 
ary of the Bible, vol. i. p. 611. 

Note 4, p. 74. — Quoted by Mr. John Ward in 
" Pyramids and Progress," page 265. 

Note 5, p. 76. — Ibid., pp. 266-267. 

Note 6, p. 76. — Xature, July 25, 1901, page 38. 

Note 7, p. 82. — " The Store City of Pithom and the 
Route of the Exodus," First Memoir of the Egyptian 
Exploration Fund, 1885. For a popular account, see 
Amelia B. Edwards's " Fellahs and Explorers," p. 50- 

Hengstenberg long ago made a very full presenta- 
tion of the undesigned correspondence between the sa- 
cred narrative and the known facts concerning Egypt, 
which has been well summarized bv President Samuel 



400 Appendix. 

Colcord Bartlett, in his " Veracity of the Hexateuch " 
(pp. 87-90- 

CHAPTER IV. 

Note i, p. 85. — We are glad to be supported in 
these statements by so eminent an authority as Dr. 
William Brenton Greene, Jr. : — 

" Finally, what is to be said of the tendency of the 
attempt to explain many of the events in the Old Testa- 
ment formerly regarded as miracles as special provi- 
dence? We may not say that this is a tendency to 
eliminate the Supernatural from the biblical history. 
Though not wholly and, therefore, so strikingly super- 
natural as the miracle, the special providence implies 
as evidently and as necessarily the supernatural. That 
the coincidences in which it consists should be the re- 
sult of chance, rather than of supernatural prevision 
and combination, cannot be accepted by a reflecting 
mind. Chance never exhibits purpose, and in all cases 
the same high and holy purpose. When the ship turns 
from her course just as a rock looms up before her, 
it does not weaken our conviction that a pilot is at the 
helm to learn that the ship has been turned by the pres- 
sure of her rudder against the waves. The question is, 
How came the pressure then and there ? and there is no 
satisfactory explanation but the directing hand of the 
pilot. 

" Nor, again, need the tendency under consideration 
be hostile to the miraculous. It will not be so long as 
the reality and the necessity of the miracle are still af- 



Appendix. 401 

firmed. The number of miracles may be reduced in 
the interest of correct classification quite as much as 
in the interest of antisupernaturalism ; and if the former 
be the case, the position of the miracles remaining will 
be strengthened rather than weakened. In the end, 
every concession to the truth will add a buttress to the 
truth. How this should be in this instance, it is easy 
to see. Nothing is more characteristic of the biblical 
miracles than the economy with which they are used. 
This is so, whether we conceive of them as strictly as 
the present article would do, or loosely. It is still true 
that they occur only at certain great and decisive epochs 
in the development of the divine plan of redemption, 
and that even at these epochs their employment is 
marked by sobriety and restraint in most striking con- 
trast with all alleged extrabiblical miracles." (Art. 
" The Relation of the Miracle to Nature," Bibliotheca 
Sacra, July, 1906, pp. 555-556.) 

Note 2, p. 100. — See, also, Dawson's " Egypt and 
Syria," page 35. 

Note 3, p. 101. — Nature, August 21, 1884. 

Note 4, p. 103. — Upon this point, see Hull's 
" Mount Seir, Sinai, and Western Palestine," pp. 36- 
37; Dawson's " Egypt and Syria," pp. 34-36. 

Note 5, p. 105. — The changes of level in the re- 
gion of the Great Lakes have been carefully investi- 
gated by Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of the United States Geo- 
logical Survey, who concludes thus : — 



402 Appendix. 

" The waters of each lake are gradually rising on 
the southern and western shores or falling on the north- 
ern and eastern shores, or both. . . . Eventually, unless 
a dam is erected to prevent, Lake Michigan will again 
overflow to the Illinois River, its discharge occupying 
the channel carved by the outlet of a Pleistocene gla- 
cial lake. The summit in that channel is now eight 
feet above the mean level of the lake, and the time be- 
fore it will be overtopped may be computed. Evidently 
the first water to overflow will be that of some high 
stage of the lake, and the discharge may at first be in- 
termittent. Such high-water discharge will occur in 
500 or 600 years. For the mean lake stage such dis- 
charge will begin in about 1,000 years, and after 1,500 
years there will be no interruption. In about 2,000 
years the Illinois River and the Niagara will carry 
equal portions of the surplus water of the Great Lakes. 
In 2,500 years the discharge of the Niagara will be 
intermittent, failing at low stages of the lake, and in 
3,500 years there will be no Niagara. The basin of 
Lake Erie will then be tributary to Lake Huron, the 
current being reversed in the Detroit and St. Clair 
channels" ("Recent Earth Movement in the Great 
Lakes Region," U. S. Geol. Survey, 18th An. Rep. 
(1896-97), pt. ii. pp. 639-640). 

Note 6, p. 106. — Report of the United States Deep 
Waterways Commission, 1896, pp. 155-168. The 
facts are more fully stated In my " Scientific Aspects 
of Christian Evidences," pp. 122-124. 



Appendix. 403 

Note 7, p. 106. — Proceedings of the Victoria Insti- 
tute, vol. xxviii. pp. 267-280. 

CHAPTER V. 

Note i, p. 143. — In the Quarterly Statement of the 
Palestine Exploration Fund for July, 1895, will be 
found a translation, by M. Clermont-Ganneau, of an 
Arabic account of a similar interruption of the flow of 
the Jordan twenty-five miles above Damieh in a.d. 1276 
(quoted in full by Dr. Bartlett, " Veracity of the Hex- 
ateuch," pp. 361-363). 

Note 2, p. 144. — Proc. of the A. A. A. S., Buffalo, 
N. Y., 1896, pp. 109-111. 

Note 3, p. 145. — Dr. Max Blankenkorn, " Entste- 
hung und Geschichte des Todten Meers," Zeit. 
Deutsch. Palestina-Vereins, vol. xix. p. I. 

Note 4, p. 150. — A. Benj. Thompson's " Oil Fields 
of Russia," pp. 14, 15, from which we cannot resist 
taking another illustration : — 

". . . Fountains which have been burning nearly 
half a million poods a day, representing a loss of about 
one hundred pounds per hour to the unfortunate owner, 
have not been uncommon in the Bibi-Eibat oil field, 
and for a whole week Baku has been illuminated with 
sufficient brilliancy to permit reading in the streets all 
night in the result of the glare from burning fountains 
at Bibi-Eibat, several miles awav. In one fire at Rom- 



404 Appendix. 

any, in 1898, three fountains were burning simultane- 
ously; and recently in 1901, a fountain of the Schi- 
baieff Co. at Bibi-Eibat burned a whole week before 
its force was expended and it could be extinguished. In 
a recent disastrous fire in the Bibi-Eibat oil field (au- 
tumn, 1903), sixty- five derricks were burnt, besides 
numerous reservoirs, buildings, and over 10,000,000 
poods [1,000,000 barrels] of oil; and at one time as 
many as five fountains were burning simultaneously. 
One fountain burned without cessation for about three 
weeks." 

Note 5, p. 152. — With this, Sir William Dawson 
agrees. See his " Syria and Palestine," pp. 129-131. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Note i, p. 160. — The translation of the cuneiform 
tablet is by Professor Paul Haupt, as quoted by Rev. 
C. J. Ball in " Light from the East " (see Records of 
the Past (Washington, D. C), vol. i. pp. 376-380). 

Note 2, p. 176. — We adopt Petrie's estimate of the 
cubit as 22.5 inches. The ordinary reckoning of 17.75 
inches would reduce the figures by about one-fifth. 

Note 3, p.. 176. — "Against Celsus," iv. 41. 

Note 4, p. 180. — Rev. Joseph B. Davison. See, 
also, S. E. Bishop's article, " Have We Noah's Log- 
Book," in the Bibliotheca Sacra for July, 1906, pp. 
510-517. Dr. Bishop's suggestion was also made in- 
dependently by Sir William Dawson. 



Appendix. 405 

Note 5, p. 186. — We have taken the liberty to in- 
troduce, with some enlargement, two or three para- 
graphs from the author's preliminary treatment of the 
subject in his " Scientific Aspects of Christian Evi- 
dences," pages 141-142. 

Note 6, p. 189. — The late Professor Tayler Lew- 
is's discussion of this subject is still highly to be com- 
mended. See Lange's " Commentary on Genesis," 
pages 316, 318. 

Note 7, p. 190. — Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1890, 
pp. 285-303. This thoroughgoing article is but an 
elaboration of a discussion of the subject found in Dr. 
Green's volume, " The Pentateuch Vindicated from 
the Aspersions of Bishop Colenso " (New York, John 
Wiley, 1863). Seepage 128. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Note i, p. 200. — See pages 250 and 252 of the first 
edition of " Origin of Species " and compare with the 
third and later editions. 

Note 2, p. 201. — See Huxley's " Lay Sermons and 
Addresses," chap xi. pp. 242-246. 

Note 3, p. 205. — A perusal of the most recent book 
on geology by Chamberlin and Salisbury deepens the 
impression concerning the instability of the earth's crust 
in recent geological time. Speaking of the crustal move- 



406 Appendix. 

ment of the Pliocene (the period which culminated in 
the Glacial epoch ) , they say : — 

"About the close of the Pliocene there seems to 
have been wide-spread crustal movements in most parts 
of North America. They resulted in increased height 
of land, and the time of active erosion which followed 
is sometimes known as the Ozarkian or Sierran period." 

" In the west, there were notably post-Tertiary 
movements. The plateau region was in process of up- 
lift, periodically, throughout the Tertiary, during 
which it has been estimated to have undergone an ele- 
vation of 20,000 feet (Dutton), and a degradation of 
12,000, leaving it 8,000 feet above sea-level. . . . The 
later elevations, largely by blocks, were so recent that 
the fault scarps are almost always ungraded and pre- 
cipitous, and independent of stratigraphy and drainage." 

" Near the Pacific coast notable changes marked the 
closing stages of the Pliocene and the transition from it 
to the Pleistocene. In some parts of southern Califor- 
nia (Fort Frazer, Los Angeles County) marine Plio- 
cene beds are said to occur up to altitudes of 6,000 
feet." 

" On the whole, the close of the Pliocene must be 
looked upon as a time of great crustal movement, a crit- 
ical period in the history of North America. New 
lands were made by emergence from the sea, and old 
lands were deformed and made higher; new mountains 
were made, and old ones rejuvenated ; streams were 
turned from their courses in some places, and nearly 



Appendix. 407 

everywhere started on careers of increased activity. 
The Ozarkian epoch, the transition from the Tertiary 
to the Pleistocene, was, so far as North America is con- 
cerned, an epoch of great erosion. The fact that such 
notable changes, with increased elevation of land, oc- 
curred during the epoch next preceding the glacial 
period, led to a wide-spread belief that the elevation 
was the cause of the climate of the latter period " 
(" Geology," vol. iii. pp. 31 1-3 17). 

Note 4, p. 211. — For a complete summary of facts 
bearing on the rate of subaerial erosion, see Croll's 
" Climate and Time," from which we quote as fol- 
lows : — 

" Professor Geikie finds that at the present rate of 
erosion the following is the number of years required 
by the undermentioned rivers to remove one foot of 
rock from the general surface of their basins. Pro- 
fessor Geikie thus shows that the rate of denudation, 
as determined from the amount of sediment carried 
down the Mississippi, is certainly not too high. Dan- 
ube, 6,846 years; Mississippi, 6,000 years. Nith, 4,723 
years; Ganges, 2,358 years; Rhone, 1,528 years; Ho- 
ang Ho, 1,464 years; Po, 729 years" (pp. 332-333). 

Note 5, p. 215. — For a full statement of facts on 
this subject, see J. D. Whitney's great work on " The 
Climatic Changes of Later Geological Times," pages 
133-134- 

The latest information, amply supporting that of 



408 Appendix. 

Professor Whitney, has been furnished by Mr. Ells- 
worth Huntington. See " No. 26, Explorations in 
Turkestan. By Raphael Pumpelly, W. M. Davis, R. 
W. Pumpelly and Ellsworth Huntington " (Carnegie 
Institution of Washington). 

Note 6, p. 216. — Calculating the area of the Dead 
Sea basin south of Lake Galilee as 140 miles long and 
75 miles broad, its area is 10,500 square miles. Reck- 
oning the rate of erosion the same as that in the 
Mississippi Valley (one foot in 5,000 years, which, 
notwithstanding the d^ness of the climate, is probably 
below the fact, on account of the steep gradient of the 
streams and the violence of the occasional storms), we 
obtain an accumulation of thirty feet in 5,000 years 
over the area of the lake itself, which is forty-seven 
miles long, with an average of eight miles in width. As 
the greatest depth of the lake (1,278 feet) is only in 
a small area, it is a liberal allowance to reckon the 
average depth at one-fourth this amount, or about 300 
feet. At the present rate of deposition, this would be 
filled in 50,000 years. 

Note 7, p. 217. — The facts concerning changes of 
level during the Pleistocene, or Glacial epoch, are thus 
stated by Chamberlin and Salisbury: — 

". . . evidence of Pleistocene changes of level, as 
distinct from late Pliocene, are not wanting, especially 



Appendix. 409 

near the coasts and about the shores of the Great Lakes. 
From the evidence at hand, it appears that deformative 
movements were wide-spread both in the western 
mountains and in the area covered by the great ice- 
sheets. There have also been changes of level, though 
probably less extensive, in the non-glaciated area of the 
southern and southeastern part of the continent. 

"As already noted, some of the islands of southern 
California seem to have risen something like 1,500 feet 
since the Pliocene. Other parts of the California coast, 
and some of the adjacent islands, have been subsiding 
during the same period. Near San Francisco, the sur- 
face is thought to have ranged from 1,800 feet below 
its present level to 400 feet above. Walcott has esti- 
mated that there has been elevation in the Inyo Moun- 
tains of California to the extent of 3,000 feet during 
the Pleistocene." 

" In general, the areas covered by the ice of the gla- 
cial period have risen since the ice melted. It is a 
tenable hypothesis that the rise, or some part of it, has 
resulted from the melting of the ice, and that it fol- 
lowed a depression occasioned by the weight of the ice. 
The rise of that land has, in general terms, been great- 
est where the ice was thickest " (Geology, vol. iii. pp. 
480-481). 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Note i, p. 224. — These estimates of land areas and 
elevations are taken from the fourth edition of Sir 
Archibald Geikie's " Text-Book of Geology," page 49. 



410 Appendix. 

That the above estimate of the depth of ice over the 
glaciated area of North America is conservative will 
appear by consulting Chamberlin and Salisbury's " Ge- 
ology " (vol. iii. pp. 327-502). They estimate that the 
continental glacier of North America advanced 1,500 
or 1,600 miles from the center of displacement (p. 330). 

Note 2, p. 226. — The fullest discussion of the ques- 
tion of the rate of increase of temperature on descending 
below the surface of the earth is to be found in Prest- 
wich's " Controverted Questions in Geology," pages 
146-279. His conclusions are, that the average rate 
of increase is 1 ° Fahr. for every 49.9 feet. The record 
of the deepest well in the United States is that in West 
Elizabeth, Pa., twelve miles southeast of Pittsburgh, 
which penetrated to a depth of 5,575 feet. At 5,380 
feet the temperature was 127 Fahr. an increase of i° 
for every 69.5 feet (West Virginia Geological Survey, 
vol. i. (a) p. 104). 

Note 3, p. 236. — See Chamberlin and Salisbury's 
"Geology," vol. iii. pp. 517-519; also James D. Da- 
na's " Manual of Geology" (4th ed., 1895), p. 1012. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Note i, p. 239. — See " Ice Age in North America " 
and " Man and the Glacial Period." 

Note 2, p. 240. — See art. " The Raised Beaches, 



Appendix. 41 1 

and ' Head ' or Rubble Drift, of the South of England: 
their Relation to the Valley Drifts and to the Glacial 
Period; and on a Late Post-glacial Submergence.'' 
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society (London) 
vol. xlviii. pp. 263-343 ; art. " The Evidences of a 
Submergence of Western Europe, and of the Mediter- 
ranean Coasts, at the Close of the Glacial or So-called 
Post-glacial Period, and immediately preceding the 
Neolithic or Recent Period," Philosophical Transac- 
tions of the Royal Society of London, vol. clxxxiv. 
(1893) A. pp. 903-984; "A Possible Cause for the 
Origin of the Tradition of the Flood," and " On Cer- 
tain Phenomena belonging to the Close of the Last 
Geological Period and of their Bearing upon the Tra- 
dition of the Flood" (Macmillan and Company, 
1895). 

Note 3, p. 240. — See pages 149-162. 

Note 4, p. 250. — Art. " Pacific Coast Earthquakes," 
Independent, April 26, 1906, pp. 956-958. A fuller 
report by Professor Tarr (and Mr. Lawrence Martin) 
is found in a paper entitled " Recent Changes in the 
Yakutat Bay Region, Alaska," Bulletin of the Geo- 
logical Society of America, vol. xvii. pp. 29—64. 

Note 5, p. 253. — See Quarterly Journal of Geology, 
vol. iv. (1848) p. 90. 



412 Appendix. 

CHAPTER X. 

Note i, p. 283. — Among the author's publications 
of the results growing out of these investigations, the 
following are specially to be noted : "Asiatic Russia " 
(McClure, Phillips & Company, 1902, 2 vols., pp. 
637); art. "Recent Geological Changes in Northern 
and Central Asia," Quarterly Journal of the Geolog- 
ical Society, vol. lvii. pp. 244-250; " Geology and the 
Deluge," McClure 's Magazine, June, 1901, pp. 134- 
J 39; " Origin and Distribution of the Loess in North- 
ern China and Central Asia," Bulletin of the Geo- 
logical Society of America, vol. xiii. pp. 127-138; "Ar- 
chaeological Notes from Sweden," Records of the 
Past, November, 1905, pp. 329-333; "The Ce- 
dars of Lebanon," Records of the Past, July, 1 906, pp. 
195-204. See, also, Professor P. Armaschevsky's art. 
" Human Remains below the Loess of Kief," Records 
of the Past, September, 1902, pp. 275-278. 

Note 2, p. 297. — See "Asiatic Russia," vol. ii. pp. 
485-516. 

Note 3, p. 297. — See Prof. T. C. Chamberlin's re- 
port upon the " Driftless Area of the Upper Missis- 
sippi Valley," U. S. Geol. Survey, 6th An. Rep., pp. 
278-307. A summary of facts is given in the author's 
" Ice Age in North America," chap. xvi. 



Appendix. 413 

Note 4, p. 301. — American Journal of Science, vol. 
clvii., 1879, PP- 133-139- 

Note 5, p. 310. — See Sven Hedin's " Central Asia 
and Tibet," vol. i. pp. 374-389. 

Note 6, p. 313. — See author's art. " The Cedars of 
Lebanon," Records of the Past, July, 1906, pp. 195— 
204. 

Note 7, 318. — The fullest statement of the rea- 
sons for attributing the distribution of the loess in 
Southern Russia merely to water action has been given 
by Professor P. Armaschevsky in his " Memoirs of the 
Geological Committee of Russia," vol. xv. No. I, being 
a report upon the geology of Poltava, Charkov, and 
Obojan, 1903. The first part of the report is in Rus- 
sian, but the second part, dealing specially with the ori- 
gin and distribution of the loess, and filling sixty 
quarto pages, is in German. 

Note 8, p. 320. — "Through Siberia," page 161. 

Note 9, p. 320. — Quarterly Journal of the Geo- 
logical Society, vol. lvii. p. 249. 

Note 10, p. 321. — -Art. " Recent Geology of Spitz- 
bergen," Journal of Geology, vol. xiii., 1905, pp. 611— 
616. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Note i, p. 324. — The literature concerning the gla- 



414 Appendix. 

cial lakes of North America is very abundant. For a 
summary, see my " Ice Age in North America," chap, 
xv., and Chamberlin and Salisbury's " Geology," vol. 
iii. pp. 394-402. More detailed reports will be found in 
E. W. Claypole's art. " The Lake Age in Ohio," 
Transactions of the Geological Society of Edinburgh, 
1887; Warren Upham's "Glacial Lake Agassiz," U. 
S. Geol. Survey, Monograph XXV. ; F. B. Taylor's 
"Account of the History of the Great Lakes," in 
"Studies in Indiana Geography"; Dana's "Manual 
of Geology" (4th ed.), page 982; Frank Leverett's 
" Glacial Formations and Drainage Features of the 
Erie and Ohio Basins," U. S. Geol. Survey, Mono- 
graph XLI. ; H. L. Fairchild's " Glacial Waters in the 
Finger Lakes Region of New York," Bulletin of the 
Geological Society of America, vol. x. pp. 28-68. 

Note 2, p. 344. — For this important suggestion, I 
am indebted to Miss Luella A. Owen, of St. Joseph, 
Mo., whose interest in the subject has been very pro- 
ductive of results. For a fuller discussion of the sig- 
nificance of the boulders of Tuscumbia, see, in the 
American Geologist, April, 1904, Miss Owen's art. 
"The Loess at St. Joseph" (pp. 223-228), and my 
art. " Evidence of the Agency of Water in the Dis- 
tribution of the Loess in the Missouri Valley " (pp. 
205-222). 



Appendix. 415 

Note 3, p. 347. — This important discovery, made by 
Mr. Martin Concannon while excavating a tunnel un- 
derneath his residence, was first recognized and brought 
to the notice of the public by Mr. M. C. Long, of 
Kansas City, Mo., who has presented the remains to 
the public museum of the city. Their glacial age has 
been defended by Dr. Warren Upham and Professor 
N. H. Winchell. The latter, after three extended 
examinations of the region, would seem to place the 
matter beyond doubt in his extended and masterly re- 
port, published in the American Geologist, May, 1903, 
pp. 263-308. My own conclusions, after several vis- 
its, coincide with those of Upham and Winchell. 
(See art. " The Age of the Lansing Skeleton," Records 
of the Past, April, 1903, pp. 1 19-124). An adverse 
view, assigning the deposits to a somewhat later period, 
but still acknowledging their great antiquity, is ad- 
vocated by Professors Chamberlin, Salisbury, and Cal- 
vin, American Journal of Geology, vol. x. p. 745 et 
seq. 

CHAPTER XII. 

Note i, p. 368. — See " Studies in Science and Re- 
ligion," pp. 366-367, also " Sermons of the Monday 
Club for 1 88 1," Introductory Essay. 

Note 2, p. 371. — See art. " Creation," Bibliotheca 



41 6 Appendix. 

Sacra, April, 1885, PP- 201-224. For earlier arti- 
cles, see January, 1856, pp. 80-129; July, 1856, pp. 
631-656; April, 1857, pp. 388-413; July, 1857, PP- 
461-524. 

Note 3, p. 378. — Art. " The Mosaic Six Days and 
Geology," Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1857, pp. 61-98. 

Note 4, p. 382. — Expositor, January, 1886, page 27. 

Note 5, p. 383. — Nineteenth Century, November, 
1885, p. 698. 

Note 6, p. 384. — " Religion of Geology," Lect. ii. 
p. 63. 



INDEX, 

Abbot, Maj.-Gen. H. L., cited, 211. 

Accommodation, theory of, 24. 

Adria, 212. 

Agassiz, Louis, cited, 374. 

Ahab, relations of, to Ben-hadad, 58 ; to Assyria, 58 ; to 

Syria, 59. 
Alaska, 250, 411. 
Almanac, importance of, 70. 

Alphabet, Phoenician introduced into Palestine, 158. 
America, changes of level in North, 205, 217, 321, 323, 341, 

402, 406, 409. 
America, North, Deluge in, chapter on, 323-367. 
Amraphel. See Khammu-rabi. 
Animals, destruction of, 238, 345, 352, 358; creation of, 373; 

order of creation, 374. 
Anthropomorphism, 34. 
Ararat, position of, 176. 
Arioch, 157. 

Ark, dimensions of, 175. 
Armaschevsky, P., on human remains below the loess, 3^, 

412; on distribution of loess in Russia, 412. 
Aryan language, center of, 314. 
Asia, 205; excursion across, 227; post-glacial subsidence of, 

228 ; Deluge in, chapter on, 283-322. 

Babylon, capture of, 43, 49. 

Baku, oil-fields of, 146-150, 403. 

Baldwin, Esq., S. Prentiss, quoted, 138. 

Ball, Dr., discovers Canadian boulders at Tuscumbia, 335. 

Ball, Rev. C. J., 404. 

Barrows, Prof. E. P., quoted, 377. 

Bartlett, Pres. S. C, cited, 399, 403. 



41 8 Index. 



Beauterne, Chevalier de, cited, 388. 

Beecher, Prof. Willis J., quoted, 390. 

Belshazzar, relation of, to Nebuchadnezzar, 48, 395 ; to Nabon- 

idus, 48, 395. 
Berosus, his account of the Deluge, 172. 
Bertrand, General, cited, 388. 
Bibi-Eibat, burning oil-well at, 403. 
Birds, creation of, 380. 
Bishop, Dr. S. E., cited, 404. 
Blankenkorn, Max, cited, 403. 
Brugsch, H. K., cited, 399. 

Buckland, Dean William, on ossiferous fissures, 256. 
Buried channels, 218. 
Butler, Bishop, quoted, 387. 

Calais, France, 241, 247. 

California, 204, 250, 409. 

Calvin, Prof. Samuel, cited, 415. 

Captivity, return from, 42, 43. 

Cartography, exaggerations in, 37. 

Cascades, the, 132-141. 

Catastrophism in geology, 199. 

Cedars of Lebanon, 313. 

Chaloof, 95. 

Chamberlin, Prof. T. C, on instability of the earth's crust, 
405-407, 408; on depth of the ice in the Glacial epoch, 410; 
cited, 412, 414, 415. 

Champlain period, 323. 

Chazy, N. Y., 331. 

Chedor-laomer, 157. 

Chicago, glacial outlet at, 330. 

Chili, 204. 

Christ, an historical character, 3 ; the center of Christianity, 
15; sublimit}- of, 20; rules the world by love, 21; not an 
impostor, 22 ; or the product of imposture, 23 ; or of legen- 
dary growth, 24 ; indorses the Old Testament, 27-29. 



Index. 419 

Christianity, character of, 3; proof of, 4; certainty of, 13; his- 
torical evidences of, 14-26; in the second century, 19; 
sublimity of, 20; not the fruit of imposture, 22; nor of 
legendary growth, 23 ; nor of delusion, 24. 

Cincinnati, glacial floods at, 329. 

Claypole, Prof. E. W., on Lake Ohio, 327, 414. 

Clermont-Ganneau, C. S., cited, 403. 

Concannon, Mr. Martin, 415. 

Connecting links of the argument, 41. 

Cotsworth, Mr. Moses B., on the object of the pyramids, 70, 
399- 

Council Bluffs, 343. 

Croll, James, quoted, 407. 

Cuneiform tradition of the Deluge, 161-174. 

Cyprus, Island of, 103. 

Cyrus, character of, 43 ; policy of, 392. 

Damascus, 123. 

Damieh, 403. 

Dana, Prof. J. D., cited, 211, 410; on the Champlain period, 
323; on Genesis i., 370; on the order of creation, 372-375, 
415. 

Daniel, historical setting of the book of, 43-52. 

Darius the Mede, 50. 

Darius, meaning of the word, 51. 

Darwin, Charles, on the rate of erosion, 200; on the destruc- 
tion of species, 352. 

Davis, Prof. W. M., on glaciers of Central Asia, 300; cited, 
407. 

Davison, Rev. Joseph, quoted, 180; cited, 404. 

Dawson, G. M., cited, 382. 

Day, meaning of, in Genesis i., 381-383. 

Deluge, traditions of the Noachian, chapter on, 159-197; 
comparison with other traditions, 160-175; traditions criti- 
cised, 175-179; duration of, 179, 183; extent of, 184-189; 
object of, 184; date of, 189-197; scientific credibility of the, 



420 Index. 



chapter on, 198-219; in Europe, chapter on, 238-282; in 
Asia, chapter on, 283-322; nature of the evidence, 239; in 
North America, chapter on, 323-367; destruction of spe- 
cies by, 345. 

Denver, elevation of, 205, 206. 

Deuteronomy, attributed to Moses, 31. 

Diatessaron of Tatian, 19, 389. 

Driver, Prof. S. R., on the meaning of " day " in Genesis i., 
381, 382. 

Dunes below the " head," 245, 254. 

Dutton, Major C. E., 132. 

Earth, plasticity of, 225; interior temperature of, 226, 372. 

Earthquakes, effects of, 126-130, 141, 250; in Lisbon, 250; 
in San Francisco, 250; in Alaska, 250. 

East Brighton, 241, 242, 244. 

Edwards, Amelia B., cited, 399. 

Egypt, Israel in, chapter on, 67-82; famines of, 70; vacil- 
lations of the government of, 79. 

Ekron, 398. 

Elephants in Europe, 219. 

Emerson, Prof. B. K., quoted, 144. 

Emmons, Mr. S. F., quoted, 136. 

Equation, personal, 68. 

Erosion, rate of, 211; of limestone, 233. 

Esdraelon, valley of, 122, 125. 

Etham, 95. 

Europe, changes in level of northwestern, 218; Deluge in, 
chapter on, 238-282; destruction of animals in, 356. 

Evidence, circumstantial, 116; scientific, 117. 

Evolution in geology, 199. 

Exodus, the, chapter on, 83-117. 

Fairchild, Prof. H. L., cited, 414. 

Falls of Niagara, 229, 234; of St. Anthony, 230, 234. 

Famines in Egypt, 70, 73, 74; causes of, 74-79. 



Index. 421 

Fish, creation of, 380. 

Fort Wayne, Ind., glacial outlet at, 330. 

Fraas, Dr. Oscar, cited, 98, 99. 

Free-will a force, 84. 

Fundy, Bay of, 207. 

Gaudry, Prof. A., cited, 260. 

Geikie, Sir Archibald, cited, 409. 

Geikie, Prof. James, on the loess, 274, 298 ; cited, 407. 

Genealogical tables, 40, 191; condensation of, 192; structure 
of, in Genesis, 195. 

Genesis and Science, chapter on, 368-386. 

Geological forces not uniform, 200; movements relatively 
slight, 204; recent great changes, 207, 215. 

Gibraltar, Rock of, 262, 263, 267. 

Gibbon, Edward, quoted, 398. 

Gilbert, Dr. G. K., on Lake Bonneville, 333; on changes of 
level of lakes, 401. 

Glacial epoch, changes of level during, 205, 217; as a vera 
causa, chapter on, 220-237; cause of, 220; depth of ice in, 
221 ; weight of the ice of the, 223 ; attraction of the ice, 
224; depression of land caused by the, 225; limited in 
Asia, 228, 284; recency of, 229-235; in Mt. Lebanon, 313; 
boundary in North America, 324; floods in the Ohio, 328; 
outlet at Fort Wayne, 330; floods in the Missouri Valley, 
334-345; boundary in Missouri and Kansas, 336. 

Gladstone, Hon. William E., quoted, 378, 382. 

Gobi, Desert of, 214, 300, 309; filled with water, 310. 

Gobrvas equals Darius the Mede, 51, 395. 

Gomorrah. S^ Sodom and Gomorrah. 

Gospels, synoptic, date of, 24. 

Graphite of vegetable origin, 373. 

Green, Prof. William H., on primitive chronology, 40, 19c— 
197, 405- 

Greene, Dr. William B., quoted, 400. 



422 Index. 



Guernsey, Island of, 275, 276, 278. 

Guyot, Prof. Arnold, on Genesis i., 371, 382. 

Harnack, Dr. Adolf, cited, 389. 

Haupt, Dr. Paul, his translation of the cuneiform tablet, 404. 

" Head." See Rubble Drift. 

Hedin, Sven, cited, 413. 

Hengstenberg, E. W., cited, 399. 

Herculaneum, destruction of, 202, 203. 

Herodotus, 393, 395, his account of the destruction of Sen- 
nacherib's army, 54. 

Hezekiah's tribute to Sennacherib, 57. 

Hippopotamus in Sicily, 219, 265. 

Historical evidence, certainty of, 4, 13, 385; of Christianity, 
14-26. 

Historical language, interpretation of, 33-39, 68. 

Historical perspective, 39. 

History, condensed, 39; fragmentary, 40. 

Hitchcock, Pres. Edward, quoted, 384. 

Hoist, Dr. N. O., on glacial origin of loess, 298, 302. 

Hopkins, W., on force of moving water, 254. 

Howorth, Sir Henry, on the flood, 274. 

Hull, Prof. Edward, quoted, 99-101, 102, 103 ; cited, 401. 

Human nature, limitations of, 119. 

Humphreys, Gen. A. A., cited, 211. 

Huntington, Mr. Ellsworth, on the glaciers of Central Asia, 
300; cited, 407. 

Huxley, Prof. T. H., cited, 405. 

Interpretation of rhetorical language, 34, 115; of condensed 
history, 40, 184, 187; of hyperbolical language, 68, 187. 
Ismailia, 95. 

Jaffa, 100. 

Jebel Attaka, 109, no. 

Jebel Geneffeh, no, 112. 



Index. 423 

Jebel Usdum, 145. 

Jehoram, co-regent, 49. 

Jehu, called son of Omri, 49, 61, 395. 

Jericho, falling of the walls of, 126-130; geological position 

of, 129. 
Jersey Islands, loess on, 275. 

Jewish history, middle and later, chapter on, 33-66. 
Jordan Valley, great " fault " of the, 120, 126. 
Joseph, career of, 78. 
Josephus, his account of the destruction of Sennacherib's 

army, 54; of the Philistines, 398. 
Joshua commands the sun to stand still, 64; military strategy 

of, 124. 
Jotham, co-regent, 49. 
Judges, brevity of the book of, 63. 

Kalgan, China, loess near, 293. 

Kansas City, 342. 

Keble, Rev. John, cited, 394. 

Keil, Dr. Karl F., on Joshua, 65, 399. 

Kettle-holes, 231. 

Keyes, Prof. C. R., on raised beach in the Crimea, 317. 

Khammu-rabi, Laws of, 155; the same as Amraphel, 156. 

Kief, human remains under the loess at, 318, 319. 

Kitchin, Dr. F. L., quoted, 97. 

Kleber, General, 123. 

Lachish, situation of, 53. 
Lakes. 

Agassiz, 331. 

Algonquin, 331. 

Baikal, 208 ; Arctic seal in, 305. 

Balkash, 305. 

Big Stone, 332. 

Bitter, 95. 

Bonneville, 332. 



424 



Indei 



Lakes. 

Erie, effect of wind upon water levels in, 106. 

Galilee, 121, 215, 394, 408. 

Glacial, 231, 324-345. 

Grand Traverse, 332. 

Great, 401. 

Great Salt, 214, 332. 

Huleh, 121. 

Huron, 402. 

Lahontan, 334. 

Manytch, an old outlet of the Caspian Sea, 307. 

Michigan, 402. 

Ohio, 327. 

Timsah, 95. 

Victoria, 77. 

Warren, 330. 
Land-slides, 138, 140, 141. 
Lang, Dr. John P., cited, 405. 
Lansing, Kan., 345. 
Lartet, E., quoted, 100. 
Lattakia, raised beach at, 101. 
Lawson, Prof. A. C, quoted, 127. 
Level, changes in land, 105, 204; about the Great Lakes, 105; 

water affected by wind, 106; Erie, 106; causes the Deluge, 

177; around the Black Sea, 315. 
Level of land, changes in, 204, 216-219, 240, 321, 323, 340. 
Leverett, Mr. Frank, cited, 414. 
Lewis, Prof. Tayler, cited, 405. 
Light, creation of, 372, 376. 

Loess, description of, 272, 297 ; in Europe, 272 ; in the Mis- 
souri Valley, 272, 297, 342; in Russia, 273, 298; in China, 

273, 284; in Central Asia, 273; in the Chinese Sea, 277; in 

pass of Nankau, 288; at Shiwantse, 294; of glacial origin, 

298; in the Desert of Gobi, 310; at Kief, 318; land-shells 

in, 343- 
Log-book of Noah, 180-189. 



Index. 425 



Long, Mr. M. C, cited, 415. 

Lot's wife, fate of, 151. 

Lydda, raised beach at, 100. 

Lyell, Sir Charles, geological theories of, 199. 

Mair, Rev. Alexander, quoted, 388. 

Mammoth in Siberia, 348. 

Manchuria, no glacial epoch in, 228. 

Man, creation of, 375, 380. 

Martin, Mr. Lawrence, cited, 411. 

Martinique, 204. 

Martyr, Justin, testimony of, 19. 

Merrins, Dr. Edward M., on Nebuchadnezzar's malady, 45; 

on the destruction of Sennacherib's army, 53, 397; of the 

Philistines, 55. 
Mesha, king of Moab, 641. 
Mice. S^ Rats and Mice. 
Miller, Hugh, cited, 186. 

Miracles and natural laws, 84-87; enumerated, 86, 119. 
Moabite Stone, the, 61. 
Mokattam Hills, 99. 
Mongolia, no glacial epoch in Eastern, 227; loess in Eastern, 

291. 
Montholon, General, cited, 388. 
Montreal, changes in level at, 205. 
Moon, set as a sign of seasons, 379. 
Moses, author of the Pentateuch, 26-32; Song of, 91. 
Mountains. 

Alps, recent elevation of, 204. 

Altai, glaciers in, 312. 

Andes, 204. 

Gilboa, 394. 

Himalayas, 204. 

Lebanon, 121, 313. 

Little Hermon, 394. 

Pyrenees, 204. 



426 Index. 

Mountains. 
Rocky, 204. 
Tabor, 122, 394. 

Tian Shan, 227; glaciers in 300, 312. 
Vesuvius, 203. 

Nabonidus, career of, 48 ; elasticity of the phrase son of, 49, 

395- 
Nankau, loess in pass of, 287, 288. 
Napoleon, his testimony concerning Christianity, 20, 388 ; on 

the strategic unimportance of Jerusalem, 123. 
Nature defined, 84. 

Naville, Edouard, on the store cities of Pithom, 82. 
Nebuchadnezzar, character of, 45 ; abasement of, 46, 393 ; his 

restoration to sanity, 47. 
Newberry, Prof. J. S., quoted, 138. 
New Orleans, 211. 

New Testament, witness of the, chapter on, 3-32. 
Niagara Falls as a glaciometer, 229, 234. 
Norway, changes in level of, 218. 

Oberlin, Ohio, glacial phenomena in, 232. 

Old Testament, indorsed by the New, 26-31; a unity, 41. 

Omaha, Neb., 343. 

Omnipotence of God, 86. 

Orr, Dr. James, cited, 390. 

Orton, Prof. Edward, quoted, 146. 

Ossiferous fissures, 256-272; breccia in, 257; animal remains 

in, 257; at Santenay, France, 259; theories of, 258-265; at 

Gibraltar, 262; at Palermo, 265. 
Owen, Miss Luella A., on loess of the Missouri Valley, 346, 

414. 

Palermo, hippopotamus bones at, 265. 

Palestine, physical preparation for Israel in, chapter on, 118- 

158; central position of, 120, 125; geology of, 121, 144, 

Phoenician alphabet introduced into, 158. 



Index. 427 



Parsimony, law of, 119. 

Peking, loess on plain of, 286. 

Pentateuch indorsed by Christ as a whole, 29 ; a written doc- 
ument, 30. 

Perspective, in history, 36; in cartography, 37; in painting, 38. 

Petrie, Dr. Flinders, cited, 404. 

Petroleum in the Jordan Valley, 144, 145, 150; in the United 
States, 146; in Southern Russia, 148; burning fountains of, 
150, 403. 

Philistine epidemic, 55, 398; agency of mice in, 56. 

Pi-hahiroth, 108, 109. 

Pinches, Dr. T. G., cited, 157, 395. 

Pithom, 80, 82. 

Plague, bubonic, 53 ; destructivity of, 55 ; symptoms of, 398. 

Plants, creation of, 373, 377. 

Poetical license, 34. 

Polytheism counteracted by Genesis i., 368. 

Pompeii, destruction of, 202, 203. 

Poole, Edward S., on Egyptian famines, 73. 

Post, Rev. George, quoted, 101. 

Prestwich, Prof. Joseph, on the Deluge, 240-282; on the rub- 
ble drift, 241-256; on ossiferous fissures, 256-272; on loess, 
272-282; on temperature of the earth below the surface, 410. 

Proof, scientific, 6, 12, 83, 94, 117; burden of, 16, 32, 42; 
moral, 18; circumstantial, 83, 94. 

Pumpelly, Raphael, on Chinese loess, 293 ; on transporting 
power of wind, 300 ; cited, 407. 

Pumpelly, R. W., cited, 407. 

Pusey, Dean, cited, 394. 

Pyramids, object of, 70; raised beach near, 97. 

Raised beaches in Egypt, 97 ; in Syria, 100, 101 ; on island of 
Cyprus, 102; in Scandinavia, 205, 219; in Southern Eng- 
land, 242, 244, 245, 254; on the Jersey Islands, 275; around 
the Black Sea, 317; on the Lena River, 320; in Spitzbergen, 
320; on Lake Erie, 330; at Chazy, N. Y., 331. 



428 Index. 



Rameses, 80, 82, 88. 

Ramleh, raised beach at, 100. 

Rats and mice, agency of, in bubonic plagues, 54-56. 

Richthofen, Baron, on Chinese loess, 273, 292. 

Rivers. 

Angara, 208, 210, 311. 

Chu, 308. 

Columbia, submerged trees in, 134, 333, 338. 

Danube, 338, 407. 

Delaware, old channel of, 217. 

Detroit, 402. 

Dnieper, 318. 

Erie, 402. 

Ganges, 407. 

Grand, Mich., 330. 

Hoangho, changes in channel of, 285, 407. 

Hubbardston, Vt., 337. 

Hudson, old channel of, 217. 

Hi, 308. 

Illinois, 402. 

Irtysh, 309. 

Jaxartes, 308. 

Jordan, 124; parting of the waters of, 130—144, 403. 

Khilok, 210. 

Lena, 320. 

Litany, 125. 

Mohawk, 331. 

Mississippi, 211, 407, 408. 

Missouri, 272, 334. 

Niagara, 402. 

Nile, eastern branch of, 103 ; sources of the, 72 ; causes of 
the overflow of, 72; eastern branch of, 103. 

Nith, 407. 

Osage, 335. 

Oxus, 308. 

Plum, Ohio, a glacial chronometer, 232. 



Index. 429 



Rivers. 

Po, 211, 407. 

Port Neuf, 333. 

Poultney, Vt., 337. 

Red of the North, 332. 

Rhine, 274, old course of, 218. 

Rhone, 407. 

Selenga, 210, 212. 

Snake, lost, 137, 333. 

St. Clair, 402. 

St. Lawrence, old channel of, 218. 

Susquehanna, old channel of, 217. 

Tarim, 309. 

Tornadus, 177. 

Uda, 210. 

Ural, 307. 

Volga, 307. 

Yangtsekiang, 286. 

Zab, 177. 
Romany, burning oil-well at, 403. 
Rousseau concerning Christianity, 22. 
Rubble drift, description of, 241-256; at Calais, 241; at East 

Brighton, 241, 242, 245 ; at other places in Southern Eng- 
land, 245; distance carried, 246, 249; theories of, 248-256; 

correct theory of, 251. 
Russell, Prof. Israel C, on Lake Lahontan, 334. 

Sahara, Desert of, produces no loess, 302. 

Salisbury, Prof. R. D., quoted on the date of the Glacial 

epoch, 234; on instability of the earth's crust, 405-407, 408; 

on depth of ice in the Glacial epoch, 410; cited, 414, 415. 
Salt, around the Dead Sea, 145. 
Samaria, 124. 
Samaritans, the, 42. 

San Francisco, 409; earthquake of, 126. 
Santenay, mountain of, 259, 262, 267. 



430 Index. 



Sayce, Prof. A. H., quoted, 155, 392. 

Schaff, Dr. Philip, cited, 389. 

Schweinfurth, G. A., cited, 99. 

Seals, Arctic, in Lake Baikal and Caspian Sea, 305. 

Seas. 

Adriatic, 211. 

Aral, 305, saltness of, 214, 306; level of, 308. 

Caspian, 213; saltness of, 214, 305, 306; Arctic seal in, 

306. 
Dead, depth of, 121, 408; geology of, 144, 215; age of, 

216. 
Red, passage of, 87-117. 

Second Causes, God's relation to, 33-36, 87, 93, 118, 130, 143, 
152. 

Sediment, amount of, in Chinese rivers, 285. 

Sennacherib, destruction of army of, 52-57 ; referred to by Jo- 
sephus and Herodotus, 54; agency of mice in, 54; rela- 
tions of, to Hezekiah, 57. 

Serbonian Bog, 53, 97. 

Shalmaneser II., black obelisk of, 60. 

Shepherd Kings, in Egypt, 79. 

Shishak, expedition of, to Palestine, 62. 

Shiwantse, China, houses in the loess at, 290, 294, 295, 296. 

Siberia, during the Glacial epoch, 284. 

Sicily, hippopotamus in, 219, 265, 348. 

Sioux City, 343. 

Smith, George, quoted, 160. 

Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction of, 144-152. 

Spartacus, 203. 

Species, stability of, during Tertiary period, 355, 356; de- 
struction of, 238, 345, 352-358. 

Spitzbergen, changes of level in, 320. 

Stadling, J., on raised beach in Siberia, 320. 

Stanley, Dean, cited, 394. 

Stevenson, Prof. J. J., on changes of level in Spitzbergen, 320. 

St. Helena, 388. 



Index. 43: 



St. Joseph, Mo., 272, 343, 346. 

Store cities in Egypt, 80, 82. 

Stubbs, Prof. William, cited, 33. 

Sudd, Nile obstructed by, 74-77. 

Suez Canal, 95. 

Suez, Gulf of, 94; former extension of, 95. 

Sun set in the heavens, 379. 

Sungarian depression, 309. 

Tarr, Prof. R. S., on earthquake in Alaska, 251, 4] 

Tartars, wanderings of the, 315. 

Tashkent, 299, 305. 

Tatian's Diatessaron, 19, 389. 

Taylor, Mr. Frank B., cited, 414. 

Temperature of the earth, 226, 372, 410. 

Tertiary period, changes of level in, 204. 

Texas, oil-wells in, 146. 

Thompson, A. B., quoted, 403. 

Tidal waves, 250. 

Tientsin, formerly on the sea, 286. 

Toledo, Ohio, 106. 

Trebizond, raised beach at, 315, 316. 

Tschernyschev, Dr. T. N., on origin of loess, 310. 

Tulloch, Major-General, 106. 

Tuscumbia, Mo., Canadian boulders at, 335, 414. 

Uniformitarianism in geology, 199. 
Upham, Mr. Warren, cited, 414, 415. 
Usher, Archbishop, quoted, 189. 

Walcott, C. D., cited, 409. 
Wallace, Prof. A. R., quoted, 354. 
Ward, Mr. John, cited, 399. 
West Elizabeth, Pa., 410. 
Whitney, Prof. J. D., cited, 407. 
Willcocks, on sources of the Nile, 74-76. 



432 Index. 



<=% 



Wilson, Prof. Robert Dick, on Darius the Mede, 50, 397. 

Winchell, Prof. Alexander, 382. 

Winchell, Prof. N. H., cited, 415. 

Wind, effect of, on water levels, 106 ; as a transporting 

agency, 301 ; in the deposition of loess, 302. 
Wright, F. B., journey across Asia, 283. 
Wright, Mrs. G. F., journey through Europe, 283. 
Writing, early use of, 30. 
Written history, importance of, 4; indispensable to progress, 

5-8; a stimulus to the intellect, 8-1 1; capable of a high 

degree of certainty, 11-14. 

Xerxes, son of Cambyses, 395. 
Xisuthrus, 172. 



BD &.0& 







Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: June 2005 

, v v ^J PreservationTechnologies 

«• f\ A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
° <^|1 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 

Cranberry Township, PA 16066 



